- 


Engraved  expressly  for  Holland's  "Lire  of  Lincoln" 


THE     LIFE 


ABEAHAM  LINCOLN,  ' 


BY 


J.    G.    HOLLAND, 

MEMBER  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 


SPEINGFIELD,  MASS.: 
PUBLISHED    BY    GURDON   BILL, 

1866. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  m  the  year  1865,  by 

GURDON    BILL, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PRESS: 

SAMUEL  BOWLES  AND  COMPANY, 

SPRINGFIELD,   MASS. 


v  TO 

ANDREW  JOHNSON, 

TO    WHOM    PROVIDENCE     HAS    ASSIGNED    THE    COMPLETION 


ABRAHAM     LINCOLN'S     LABORS, 

I     DEDICATE 

ims  EECOED  OP 


WITH  THE  PRAYER 

THAT   HISTORY,   WHICH  WILL   ASSOCIATE   THEIR  NAJt*ES 
FOREVER, 

MAY  BE  ABLE  TO  FIND  NO  SEAM  WHERE  THEIR  ADMINISTRATIONS 

WERE  JOINED, 

AITD 

MARK  NO  CHANGE  OF   TEXTURE  BY  WHICH  THEY  MAY 
BE   CONTRASTED. 


PREFACE. 


. 

I  HAVE  undertaken  tc  write  a  biography  of  Abraham  Lin 
coln  for  the  people ;  and,  although  they  will  be  certain  to  learn 
what  I  have  accomplished  and  what  I  have  failed  to  accom 
plish  in  the  book,  I  cannot  consent  to  pass  it  into  their  hands 
without  a  statement  of  what  I  have  aimed  to  do,  and  what  I 
have  not  aimed  to  do,  in  its  preparation.  I  am  moved  to  this, 
partly  by  my  wish  that  they  may  not  be  disappointed  in  the 
character  of  the  effort,  and  partly  by  my  desire  that,  in  making 
up  their  judgment  upon  the  work,  they  may  have  some  refer 
ence  to  my  intentions. 

First,  then,  I  have  not  aimed  to  write  a  History  of  the  Be- 
bellion.  Second,  I  have  not  aimed  to  write  a  political  or  a 
military  history  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration.  Third,  I 
have  not  aimed  to  present  any  considerable  number  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  letters,  speeches  and  state-papers.  Fourth,  I  have 
not  attempted  to  disguise  or  conceal  my  own  personal  partial 
ity  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  my  thorough  sympathy  with  the 
political  principles  to  which  his  life  was  devoted.  Though 


6 

unconscious  of  any  partiality  for  a  party,  capable  of  blinding 
my  vision  or  distorting  my  judgment,  I  am  aware  that,  at  this 
early  day,  when  opinions  are  still  sharply  divided  upon  the 
same  questions  concerning  principles,  policies  and  men,  -which 
prevailed  during  Mr.  Lincoln's  active  political  life,  it  is  impos 
sible  to  utter  any  judgment  which  will  not  have  a  bearing  up 
on  the  party  politics  of  the  time.  Thus,  the  only  alternative 
of  writing  according  to  personal  partialities  and  personal  con 
victions,  has  been  writing  without  any  partialities,  and  with 
out  any  c<fcvictions.  I  have  chosen  to  be  a  man,  rather  than 
a  machine ;  and,  if  this  shall  subject  me  to  the  charge  of  writ 
ing  in  the  interest  of  a  party,  I  must  take  what  comes  of  it. 

I  have  tried  to  paint  the  character  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  to 
sketch  his  life,  clinging  closely  to  his  side ;  giving  attention  to 
cotemporaneous  history  no  further  than  it  has  seemed  necessary 
to  reveal  his  connection  with  public  events ;  and  re-producing 
his  letters,  speeches  and  state-papers  to  no  greater  extent  than 
they  were  deemed  requisite  to  illustrate  his  personal  character, 
to  throw  light  upon  specially  interesting  phases  of  his  private 
life  and  public  career,  to  exhibit  the  style  and  scope  of  his 
genius,  and  to  expose  his  social,  political  and  religious  senti 
ments  anl  opinions.  In  pursuing  this  course,  I  have  been 
obliged  to  leave  large  masses  of  interesting  material  behind 
me,  and  to  condense  into  the  briefest  space  what  the  more 
general  historian  will  dwell  upon  in  detail. 

From  much  of  the  history  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  public  life,  to 
which  his  future  biographers  will  have  access,  I  have  been 
excluded.  The  records  and  other  evidences  of  his  intimate 


PREFACE.  7 

connection  with  all  the  event*  of  the  war  for  the  preservation 
of  American  nationality,  are  in  the  archive^  of  the  "War  De 
partment;  and  they  are  there  retained,  only  to  be  revealed 
when  the  present  generation  shall  have  passed  away.  The 
Life  of  Washington,  even  though  it  was  written  by  a  Mar 
shall,  with  the  abundant  access  to  unpublished  documents 
which  his  position  enabled  him  to  command,  or  which  it  was 
the  policy  of  the  government  to  afford  him,  waited  half  a 
century  for  Irving,  to  give  it  symmetry  and  completeness. 
The  humbler  biographers  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  though  they  satisfy 
an  immediate  want,  and  gather  much  which  would  otherwise 
be  forever  lost,  can  hardly  hope  to  be  more  than  tributaries 
to  that  better  and  completer  biography  which  the  next,  or 
some  succeeding  generation,  will  be  sure  to  produce  and 


I  have  no  opportunity,  except  that  which  this  page  affords 
me,  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  those  who  have  as 
sisted  me  in  the  collection  of  unpublished  materials  for  this 
volume.  I  have  been  indebted  specially  to  William  H.  Hern- 
don,  Esq.,  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  for  many  years  Mr.  Lincoln's 
law  partner,  who  has  manifested,  from  the  first,  the  kindest 
interest  in  my  book;  to  Newton  Bateman,  Esq.,  Superintend 
ent  of  Public  Instruction  in  Illinois ;  to  James  Q.  Howard, 
Esq.,  United  States  Consul  at  St.  John,  New  Brunswick;  to 
Hon.  John  D.  Defrees,  Superintendent  of  Public  Printing  in 
Washington ;  to  Hon.  Henry  L.  Dawes,  of  Massachusetts ;  to 
Horace  White,  Esq.,  of  the  Chicago  Tribune ;  to  U.  F.  Linder, 
Esq.,  of  Chicago;  to  J.  F.  Speed,  Esq.,  of  Louisville,  Ken- 


8  PREFACE. 

I 

tucky;  to  Judge  S.  T.  Logan,  Hon.  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  Kev. 
A.  Hale,  and  Hon.  Erastus  Wright,  old  neighbors  and  friends 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Illinois;  to  Rev.  J.  T.  Duryea,  of  New 
York;  and  George  H.  Stuart,  Esq.,  of  Philadelphia.  To 
these,  and  to  the  unnamed  but  not  forgotten  friends  who 
have  aided  me,  I  return  my  hearty  thanks. 

Putnam's  "  Record  of  the  Rebellion "  has  proved  itself  an 
inexhaustible  fountain  of  valuable  and  interesting  facts ;  and  I 
have  been  much  indebted  to  McPherson's  History  of  the  Re 
bellion,  the  best  arranged  and  most  complete  collection  of  pub 
lic  documents  relating  to  the  war  that  has  been  published.  I 
have  freely  consulted  the  campaign  biographies  of  Messrs. 
Scripps,  Raymond,  and  Barrett,  to  the  excellence  of  which  I 
bear  cheerful  testimony.  Among  other  books  that  have  been 
useful  to  me,  are  Nichols'  "Story  of  the  Great  March," 
Coggeshall's  "  Journeys  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  Schalk's 
"Campaigns  of  1862  and  1863,"  and  Halsted's  "Caucuses  of 
1860."  Carpenter's  "Reminiscences,"  published  in  the  New 
York  Independent,  and  an  article  by  Noah  Brooks  in  Harp 
er's  Magazine,  have  furnished  me  also  with  some  very  inter 
esting  materials. 

Hoping  that  the  volume  will  be  as  pleasant,  instructive  and 
inspiring  in  the  reading  as  it  has  been  in  the  writing,  I  present 
it  to  my  indulgent  friends,  the  American  people. 

J.  G.  H. 

SPRINGFIELD,  MASS.,  November,  1865. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 
BIRTH   AND    CHILDHOOD. 

Birth— Daniel  Boone  and  the  Pioneers  of  Kentucky— Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Grand 
father  of  the  President— His  Removal  to  Kentucky,  and  Death— His  Brothers  and 
Sons— Probable  Origin  of  the  Lincolns— Thomas  Lincoln,  the  Father  of  the  Presi 
dent—His  Marriage— His  Children— The  Mother  of  the  President— Early  Education 
of  Abraham  Lincoln— His  Schoolmasters— Zachariah  Riney— Caleb  Hazel— Religious 
Habits  of  the  People— Parson  Elkin— Slavery  in  Kentucky— Defective  Land-titles 
—Removal  of  Thomas  Lincoln  to  Indiana, 17 

CHAPTER   H 
YOUTH. 

Lincoln's  early  Industry— His  Schools— Simplicity  of  Border  Life— Death  of  his  Mother 
— Her  Funeral  Sermon — Her  Influence  upon  his  Character — His  early  Practice  of 
Writing— His  Books— Anecdote  illustrating  his  Honesty— His  Father's  second  Mar 
riage — Anecdote  illustrating  Mr.  Lincoln's  Humanity — He  builds  a  Boat — A  Fact 
for  the  Psychologist— He  takes  charge  of  a  Flat-boat  for  New  Orleans— His  Con 
test  with  seven  Negroes— He  sells  the  Boat  and  Cargo,  and  returns  on  foot— His 
Mental  Development— His  Moral  Character, 27 

CHAPTER    HI. 
EARLY    MANHOOD. 

Marriages  in  Thomas  Lincoln's  Family — Marriage  and  Death  of  Abraham's  Sister — 
Removal  of  Thomas  Lincoln  to  Illinois— Difficulties  of  the  Journey— Abraham  as 
sists  in  building  a  Log  House  and  in  splitting  Rails— He  leaves  Home— Works  for 
hire,  Chopping  Wood  and  Farming — Anecdote — Thomas  Lincoln  removes  to  Coles 
County— His  death— Abraham  goes  to  New  Orleans  with  a  Cargo  of  Swine— He  is 
employed  in  a  Store  at  New  Salem— Anecdotes  illustrating  his  Honesty— His  Pun 
ishment  of  a  Bully— His  Adventure  with  the  "Clary's  Grove  Boys"— He  studies 
English  Grammar — Attends  Debating  Clubs — Anecdote — His  Employer  fails,  and 
the  Store  is  closed— Mr.  Lincoln  is  called  "Honest  Abe," 38 


10  TABLE     OF    CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    IV. 
THE   BLACK   HAWK   WAR. 

Black  Hawk— His  Treachery— Governor  Reynolds  calls  for  Volunteers— Lincoln  enlists 
—He  is  chosen  Captain— His  Popularity  with  the  Soldiers— Forced  Marches— 
"Stillman's  Defeat" — Flight  of  the  Indians — Volunteers  Discharged — Lincoln  re- 
enlists— Capture  of  Black  Hawk— Lincoln's  Speech  on  General  Cass— Mr.  Lincoln 
^becomes  a  Candidate  for  the  Legislature— He  is  Defeated— Purchases  a  Store,  but 
fails  in  Business— Is  appointed  Postmaster— Anecdote  illustrating  his  Honesty— He 
becomes  a  Surveyor, 48 

CHAPTER   V. 

CHARACTER  OF  MR.  LINCOLN  ON  ENTERING  PUBLIC  LIFE. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  Self-made  Man — Loyal  to  his  Convictions — Marked  and  Peculiar — 
Anecdotes — He  was  Respected  and  Loved — A  Man  of  Practical  Expedients — Anec 
dote—Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  Religiou?  Man— His  Faith  in  Divine  Providence— His  Log 
ical  and  Reasoning  Powers— He  was  Child-like, 58 

CHAPTER    VI. 

MR.   LINCOLN  IN  THE  ILLINOIS   LEGISLATURE. 

Mr.  Lincoln  contemplates  the  Study  of  Law — He  begins  to  make  Speeches — Elected  to 
the  Legislature  in  1834— Commences  the  Study  of  Law— Goes  on  foot  to  the  Capi 
tal—Returns  to  the  Study  of  Law  and  to  Surveying— Re-elected  to  the  Legislature 
in  1836— Speech  at  Springfield— The  "Long  Nine"— Distinguished  Men  in  the  Leg 
islature — Change  of  the  State  Capital — Mr.  Lincoln's  first  meeting  with  Stephen  A. 
Douglas — Pro-slavery  Resolutions  adopted — Protest  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Dan 
Stone— Anecdote,  .  „  .  .  * ...... «•  0  .  o  .  .  c 64 

CHAPTER   VH. 
MR.  "LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER. 

Mr  Lincoln  becomes  a  Law-partner  of  Ma;or  Stuart,  and  removes  to  Springfield— Re- 
elected  to  the  Legislature  in  1838— Pol:t:cal  Parties  in  Illinois— Mr.  Lincoln's  Stories 
—The  Member  from  Wabash  County— "  Ridmg  the  Circuit  "in  Illinois— Mr.  Lin 
coln's  Ability  as  a  Lawyer — His  Regard  for  Justice — Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Pig — His 
Power  as  an  Advocate— His  "Colt  Case  "  in  the  Coles  Circuit  Court— His  Exception 
able  Stories— His  Regard  for  Poor  Relatives, 72 

CHAPTER   VHL 
MRo  LINCOLN'S  MARRIAGE. — THE  CLAY  CAMPAIGN. 

Mr.  Lincoln  Re-elected  to  the  Legislature  in  1840— Strange  Incident  in  his  Life— He 
Accepts  a  Challenge  to  a  Duel— Forms  a  Law-partnership  with  Judge  Logan— His 
Marriage— His  private  Letters— His  Loyalty  to  Party— Anecdote  illustrating  his 
Generosity— Political  Contest  of  1844— Mr.  Lincoln  a  Candidate  for  Presidential 
Elector— He  Canvasses  the  State— Defeat  of  Mr.  Clay— Mr.  Lincoln  visits  him  at 
Ashland— Anecdotes  illustrating  Mr.  Lincoln's  Courage— Anecdote  illustrating  his 
strong  Party  Feeling,  .  .  .  .  ,  ....  *  *  .  «  «  .....  c  B «  •  •  87 

CHAPTER   IX. 
-  MR.   LINCOLN  IN   CONGRESS. — THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 

Mr.  Lincoln  nominated  for  Congress  in  184&— He  "Stumps"  his  District— Elected  by  a 
large  Majority— His  fitness  for  the  Position— The  old  Whig  Party  and  the  Mexican 
War— Mr.  Lincoln's  Resolutions— Mr.  Hudson's  Resolution— Mr.  Lincoln's  Speech, 
January  12th,  1848 — Defense  of  the  Postme?ter-general — Mr.  Lincoln  a  member  of 


I 

TABLE     OF    CONTENTS.  11 


the  Whig  Convention  of  1848— Advocates  the  nomination  of  General  Taylor— Speech 
in  Congress  on  the  Candidates  for  the  Presidency — Correspondence  with  the  Whig 
Leaders  in  Illinois— Speeches  during  the  Canvass— Second  Session  of  the  Thirtieth 
Congress— Mr.  Lincoln's  Position  on  the  Slavery  Question— He  seeks  for  the  Posi 
tion  of  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  but  fails, 09 

CHAPTER    X. 

RETURN  TO   PRIVATE  LIFE. — REPEAL   OF  THE  J1ISSOURI 
COMPROMISE. 

Mr.  Lincoln  returns  to  the  Practice  of  his  Profession— His  Affection  for  his  Children— 
His  Absent-mindedness— He  Studies  Euclid— His  Mechanical  Skill— Anecdotes  il 
lustrating  his  Practice  of  Law— Opinions  of  Judge  Caton,  Judge  Breese,  Judge 
Drummond,  and  Judge  Davis — Mr.  Lincoln's  Eulogy  on  Henry  Clay — Admission  of 
California  as  a  Free  State — "Compromise  Measures"  of  1850 — Election  of  Mr.  Pierce 
to  the  Presidency — Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  Passage  of  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill— Judge  Douglas  and  Popular  Sovereignty— Meeting  of  Douglas  and 
Lincoln  at  Springfield— At  Peoria— Extract  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  Speech  at  Peoria— 
Overthrow  of  the  Democratic  Party  in  Illinois— Election  of  Mr.  Trumbull  to  the 
United  States  Senate, r  .  .  .  124 

CHAPTER    XL 

ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Affairs  in  Kansas — Border  Ruffians — Letter  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Mr.  Speed — State  of  the 
Slavery  Question — Mr.  Lincoln  attends  a  State  Convention  at  Bloomington — Repub 
lican  Party  organized  in  Illinois — Mr.  Lincoln's  Speech  at  the  Convention — Mr.  Lin 
coln  a  Candidate  for  the  Vice-presidency  at  the  National  Republican  Convention 
of  1856 — Speech  at  Charleston,  Illinois — Speech  of  Mr.  Douglas  at  Springfield — Mr. 
Lincoln's  Reply— The  Lecompton  Constitution— Position  of  Mr.  Douglas,  .  .  .  144 

CHAPTER   XII. 

CONTEST   FOR  THE   SENATORSHIP. 

Sketch  of  the  previous  History  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas — Mr.  Lincoln's  Opinion  of  him — 
Mr.  Douglas  opposes  the  Lecompton  Constitution — Democratic  State  Convention — 
Eastern  Republicans  favor  Mr.  Douglas'  Re-election — Views  of  the  Republican 
Party  in  Illinois — Republican  State  Convention — Resolution  on  the  Dred  Scott  De 
cision  and  the  Power  of  Congress  over  the  Territories — Mr.  Lincoln  Nominated  for 
United  States  Senator — His  Speech  before  the  Convention — Speech  of  Mr.  Douglas 
at  Chicago — His  Misrepresentations  of  Mr.  Lincoln — His  Views  on  the  Dred  Scott 
Decision— Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply— Illustrations  of  his  Tact  and  Wit, 154 

CHAPTER    XHL 

CONTEST  FOR  THE  SENATORSHIP. 

Mr.  Lincoln  proposes  to  Mr.  Douglas  a  Joint  Canvass  of  the  State— Mr.  Douglas  de 
clines,  but  proposes  Joint  Debates  in  seven  Districts— Mr.  Lincoln  commences  his 
Canvass  of  the  State— His  Reply  to  Douglas'  Charge  of  Falsehood— Meeting  of 
Douglas  and  Lincoln  at  Ottawa— Mr.  Douglas'  Charges,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  Replies- 
Extract  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  Speech— Their  Meeting  at  Freeport— Lincoln's  Reply 
to  the  Questions  of  Douglas— His  Questions  to  Douglas— Answers  of  Douglas,  and 
Lincoln's  Rejoinder— Triumph  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  Popular  Estimation— Objects 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  Campaign-^Mr.  Douglas  Re-elected  Senator  by  the  Legisla 
ture,  179 


12  TABLE     OF    CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XIV. 
PREMONITIONS    OP  THE   PEESIDENCY. 

Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  Winter  of  1858-9  delivers  a  Lecture  on  the  History  of  Inventions— 
His  Popularity  at  the  West— Letter  to  Dr.  Canisius  on  Naturalization  and  Fusion- 
Reception  by  the  State  Convention  at  Decatur— The  Presentation  of  the  Rails  from 
Macon  County— Mr.  Lincoln's  Visit  to  Kansas— Extract  from  his  Speech  at  Leaven- 
worth— He  Visits  Ohio— Speaks  at  Columbus  and  Cincinnati— Extract  from  his 
Speech  at  Cincinnati— Popular  Sovereignty  Doctrine  of  Mr.  Douglas— Mr.  Lincoln 
Visits  New, York— Speaks  at  Cooper  Institute— William  C.  Bryant  presides  at  the 
Meeting— Great  Ability  and  Research  displayed  in  the  Speech— Extracts— Mr.  Lin 
coln  Visits  the  Five  Points  Mission— Goes  to  Connecticut,  and  speaks  at  Hartford, 
New  Haven,  Meriden,  Ac. — His  great  Success  as  a  Speaker — Anecdote  related  by 
Rev.  J.  P.  Gulliver — Mr.  Lincoln  Visits  his  Son  at  Cambridge,  and  returns  to  Illi 
nois,  195 

CHAPTER   XV. 

PRESIDENTIAL   CONVENTIONS   OF   1860. — MR.   LINCOLN'S 

NOMINATION. 

State  of  the  Country  in  1860 — Southern  Leaders  Preparing  for  Secession — Knights  of  the 
Golden  Circle — Church  and  Press  at  the  South — Cobb  and  Floyd — Opinions  at  the 
North — Democratic  Convention  at  Charleston — Mr.  Yanceyand  the  "Fire-eaters" — 
Division  of  the  Convention— Both  Factions  Adjourn  without  making  Nominations- 
National  Constitutional  Union  Convention  at  Baltimore— Bell  and  Everett  nominated 
— Breckinridge  nominated  by  the  Fire-eaters,  and  Douglas  by  the  regular  Democratic 
Convention— Mr.  Lincoln's  Story— Republican  Convention  at  Chicago— Prominent 
Candidates  for  the  Nomination— The  Party  Platform— Balloting  for  President— Nom 
ination  of  Lincoln — Enthusiasm  of  the  Convention  and  of  the  Spectators — Disap 
pointment  of  Mr.  Seward's  friends — Reception  of  the  News  at  Springfield — The 
Committee  of  the  Convention  visit  Mr.  Lincoln — Speech  of  Mr.  Ashmun,  the  Chair 
man — Reply  of  Mr.  Lincoln — His  Letter  Accepting  the  Nomination, 216 

CHAPTER    XVI. 
THE   CAMPAIGN. — MR.    LINCOLN'S   ELECTION. 

Mr.  Lincoln  visited  by  Multitudes  of  People— Anecdotes— The  Prospect  for  the  Future 
—Mr.  Lincoln's  Views  of  the  Duties  of  Christians  and  Ministers— His  Conversation 
with  Mr.  Bateman— His  Religious  Faith  and  Convictions— Apparent  Contradictions 
in  Character— The  Election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  Regarded  as  Certain— Course  of  the  South 
ern  Leaders — Silence  of  Mr.  Lincoln  during  the  Campaign — Election  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
— Popular  Rejoicing  at  the  North,  and  Exasperation  at  the  South — Feeling  of  the 
Republican  Party — Effect  upon  Mr.  Lincoln — An  Optical  Illusion — Visit  to  Chicago 
— Anecdotes  illustrating  Mr.  Lincoln's  Love  of  Children — "Cabinet-making" — Mr. 
Lincoln's  Views, ,.,,..,.  232 

CHAPTER    XVII. 
MR.  LINCOLN'S  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON. 

Enormity  of  the  Rebellion— Floyd— Black— Buchanan— Secession  of  several  States- 
Forts  and  Arsenals  seized— Position  of  Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Holt— Attempts  to  con 
ciliate  the  South — Condition  of  the  Country — Mr.  Lincoln  leaves  Springfield  for 
Washington— His  Farewell  Speech— His  Speech  at  Indianapolis— Journey  to  Cin 
cinnati—Speeches  at  Cincinnati— Reception  at  Columbus— At  Pittsburg— At  Cleve 
land—At  Buffalo— At  Albany— At  Poughkeepsie— At  New  York— At  Trenton— At 
Philadelphia— Plot  against  the  President's  Life— His  Speech  at  Independence  Hall 
—Reception  at  Harrisburg— Journey  to  Washington, 249 


TABLE     OF    CONTENTS.  13 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

THE  INAUGURATION. — OPENING  OF  THE  WAR. 

The  Procession— Reception  of  the  President  by  the  People— The  Inaugural  Address- 
Cabinet  Appointments — Rebel  Sympathizers  in  Office — Mr.  Lincoln's  pacific  Policy 
— Arrival  of  Rebel  Commissioners  in  Washington — Surrender  of  Fort  Sumter — Effect 
upon  the  North — Proclamation  of  the  President — Response  of  Massachusetts — At 
tack  upon  the  Troops  in  Baltimore — Proclamation  declaring  a  Blockade  of  Rebel 
Ports— Position  of  Virginia— Secession  of  Virginia,  Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and 
Arkansas— Response  to  the  Call  of  the  President  at  the  North  and  West— Mr.  Doug 
las's  Visit  to  Mr.  Lincoln— His  Devotion  to  the  Country— Speeches  in  Illinois— His 
Sickness  and  Death, 277 

•  CHAPTER   XIX. 

FIRST   SUMMER   OF  THE   WAR. 

Important  Military  Operations— Washington  Relieved  from  Danger— Fortress  Monroe 
Reinforced— The  Government  Works  at  Harper's  Ferry  Blown  Up  and  Abandoned 
—Occupation  of  Cairo— Rebel  Congress  assembled  at  Montgomery— Message  of 
President  Davis— President  Lincoln's  Call  for  additional  Troops— Affairs  in  Missouri 
—General  Butler's  "Contraband"  Order— Battle  of  Big  Bethel— Death  of  Colonel 
Ellsworth— Battle  of  Bull  Run— Agreement  between  Buckner  and  McClellan— Po 
sition  of  the  Government  in  reference. to  Slavery— The  State  of  Western  Virginia 
Organized— Battles  of  Laurel  Hill  and  Rich  Mountain— Special  Session  of  Congress 
— Message  of  the  President — The  Majority  of  Congress  sustain  the  Government — 
Mr.  Crittenden's  Resolution— Effect  of  the  President's  Inaugural  and  Message— Ap 
pointment  of  General  McClellan  to  the  Command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  SOS 

CHAPTER    XX. 
FOREIGN  RELATIONS. — FREMONT  IN  MISSOURI. 

Results  of  the  Bull  Run  Battle— Foreign  Relations— Seward's  Instructions  to  Minister 
Adams— To  our  Ministers  at  other  European  Courts— Belligerent  Rights  of  Rebels 
recognized  by  England  and  France— Sympathy  of  England  with  the  Rebellion— J. 
C.  Fremont  appointed  Major-general— Battle  of  Wilson's  Creek— Condition  of  Mis 
souri—Fremont's  Proclamation— Lincoln's  Letter  to  Fremont— Modification  of  Fre 
mont's  Proclamation— Letter  of  Hon.  Joseph  Holt— General  Fremont  and  Colonel 
Blair— Charges  against  Fremont— General  Grant  occupies  Paducah,  Kentucky— Sur 
render  of  Colonel  Mulligan— General  Fremont  takes  the  Field— He  is  superseded 
by  General  Hunter— General  McClellan  and  the  Army  of  the  Potomac— General 
Butler  captures  the  Hatteras  Forts— Munson's  Hill  occupied  by  the  Rebels— Battle 
of  Ball's  Bluff— Resignation  of  General  Scott— Visit  of  the  President  and  Cabinet 
to  General  Scott— Appointment  of  General  McClellan  to  the  Chief  Command- 
Victory  at  Port  Royal— Victories  of  General  Grant  in  Missouri  and  General  Nelson 
in  Kentucky— Instructions  to  General  Butler  on  the  subject  of  Slavery,  ....  324 

CHAPTER    XXL 
THE  TRENT  AFFAIR. — THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   SLAVERY. 

Capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell  by  Captain  Wilkes-Difficulties  with  England-Letter  of 
Mr.  Seward— Release  of  Mason  and  Slidell— Session  of  Congress— Message  of  the 
President— The  Question  of  Slavery— Mr.  Lincoln's  Regard  for  the  Constitution  and 
the  Laws— He  Recommends  Gradual  Emancipation— Conference  with  Members  of 
Congress  from  the  Border  States— Address  of  the  Presidentr-The  Confiscation  Act 
—Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia— Letter  of  Mr.  Greeley— Reply  of 
the  President— Mr.  Cameron's  Resignation— Appointment  of  Mr.  Stanton— Mr.  Lin 
coln's  Story, tm  339 


14  TABLE     OF    CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XXII. 
CAMPAIGNS   OF  1862. 

General  McClellan  and  the  Army  of  the  Potomac— Blockade  of  the  Potomac— Order  of 
the  President  for  a  grand  Movement  of  the  Armies  of  the  Union— Order  to  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac— General  McClellan  advises  a  different  Plan  from  that  pro 
posed  in  the  President's  Order— Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply  to  McClellan— McClellan's 
Plan  Adopted— Evacuation  of  Manassas— Orders  of  the  President— Organization  of 
Army  Corps— Blenker's  Division  ordered  to  join  Fremontr-Banks  to  attack  Jack 
son—McDowell's  Corps  retained  for  the  Defense  of  Washington— McClellan  at  Yor&- 
town— McClellan  complains  of  the  Inadequacy  of  his  Force— Correspondence  be 
tween  McClellan  and  the  Authorities  at  Washington-General  Franklin's  Division 
sent  to  General  McClellan— Evacuation  of  Yorktown— Battle  of  Williamsburgh— 
Battle  at  West  Point— Correspondence  on  the  Subject  of  Army  Corps— Mr.  Lincoln's 
"Little  Story  "—Capture  of  Norfolk— McClellan  still  Clamorous  for  Reinforcements 
—Defeat  of  Banks— Defeat  of  the  Rebels  at  Hanover  Court-House—Battle  of  Fair 
Oaks— Further  Correspondence— The  "Seven  Days'  Fight,"  and  Retreat  to  James 
River— McClellan's  Advice  to  the  Government— The  President  at  Harrison's  Land- 
ing— The  Army  of  the  Potomac  returns  to  Alexandria— Failure  of  McClellan  to  Re 
inforce  General  Pope— The  Rebels  cross  the  Potomac— General  McClellan  appointed 
to  the  Command  of  the  Army  in  Virginia— Battles  of  South  Mountain  and  Antietam 
—General  McClellan  ordered  to  pursue  the  Rebels— Stuart's  Raid— President's  Let 
ter  to  General  McClellan— The  Army  across  the  Potomac— McClellan  relieved  of  nis 
Command— His  Character— General  Burnside  appointed  to  the  Command— Defeat 
at  Frederick sburg— Capture  of  Roanoke  Island— New  Orleans  surrendered  to  Gen 
eral  Butler— Military  Affairs  at  the  West, 35$ 

CHAPTER   XXIIL 
PROCLAMATION   OF  EMANCIPATION. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Proclamation  in  pursuance  of  the  Confiscation  Act— Fernando  Wood's 
Letters,  advising  Negotiation  with  the  Rebels— The  President's  Replies— Mr.  Lin 
coln's  Letter  to  Mr.  Hodges— Mr.  Carpenter's  Account  of  the  Emancipation  Procla 
mation—Cabinet  Meeting— Opinions  of  Messrs.  Chase,  Blair  and  Seward— Mr.  Bout- 
well's  Account — The  Preliminary  Proclamation  issued — Its  Reception  by  the  People 
—General  McClellan's  Order  to  the  Army— The  Emancipation  Proclamation  of 
January  1st,  1863— Proclamation  suspending  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus— Criticisms 
upon  it— Circular  Letter  of  the  President  on  Sabbath-breaking  in  the  Army— Letter 
to  Governor  Shepley, 337 

CHAPTER   XXIV. 

SUSPENSION  OF  HABEAS   CORPUS. — THE  DRAFT. — QAM- 
PAIGNS   OF  1863. 

Colonization  Schemes  of  the  President— Compensated  Emancipation  recommended— 
Bill  for  Enrolling  and  Drafting  the  Militia — Financial  Measures  of  Congress — Opin 
ions  of  the  President — Western  Virginia  admitted  to  the  Union — Representatives 
from  Louisiana  admitted  to  Congress— Peace  Agitations— Course  of  Vallandigham 
of  Ohio— His  Arrest  by  General  Burnside— Decision  of  Judge  Leavitt—  Vallandig- 
ham's  Trial  and  Sentence— Sentence  modified  by  the  President— Letter  of  Gov 
ernor  Seymour— Vallandigham  nominated  for  Governor  by  the  Democratic  Con 
vention  of  Ohio— The  Committee  of  the  Convention  visit  the  President— The  Pres 
ident's  Reply  to  their  Letter— Resolutions  of  the  Albany  Meeting— The  President's 
Reply— Universal  Suspension  of  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus— The  Draft— Riots  in 
New  York— Course  of  Governor  Seymour— Action  of  the  President— Elections  of 
1863— Letter  from  the  Working  Men  of  Manchester,  England— The  President's 
Reply— Mr.  Lincoln's  Letter  to  J.  C.  Conkling— Military  Events  of  the  Year— Battle 


TABLE     OF     CONTENTS.  15 

of  Chancellorsville— Lee's  Invasion  of  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania— General  Meade 
succeeds  General  Hooker  in  Command— Battle  of  Gettysburg— The  President's 
Dispatch— Dedication  of  the  Gettysburg  Cemetery— Speech  of  the  President— Sur 
render  of  Vidcsburg  and  Port  Hudson— Mr.  Lincoln's  Letter  to  General  Grant— 
Rosecrans'  Campaign  in  Tennessee— General  Grant  defeats  Bragg,  and  drives  Long- 
street  from  Tennessee— The  President's  Thanksgiving  Proclamations— Difficulty 
among  Union  Men'in  Missouri— Mr.  Lincoln's  Opinion, 405 

I  CHAPTER   XXV. 

PRIVATE  LIFE  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  White  House— His  Relations  to  the  Members  of  the  Cabinet— His 
Health— His  Love  of  Music— His  Sympathy  with  the  Soldiers— Anecdotes— His 
Charity  for  Human  Weakness— His  Severity  towards  Deliberate  and  Mercenary 
Crimes— Anecdotes— Mr.  Lincoln's  Religious  Character— Death  of  his  Son— Anec 
dotes  illustrating  his  Religious  Character— His  Interest  in  the  Christian  Commis 
sion—Anecdotes—Visit  of  Two  Hundred  Members  of  the  Christian  Commission- 
Remarks  of  Mr.  Stuart,  and  the  President's  Reply— Mr.  Lincoln's  Interview  with 
Rev.  J.  T.  Duryea— His  Interest  in  the  Efforts  of  Religious  Men— His  Habits  at  the 
White  House—  Narrative  of  a  Lady  who  urged  him  to  establish  Military  Hospitals 
in  the  Northern  States— Injurious  effects  of  Excessive  Labor,  Anxiety,  and  Loss 
of  Sleep— Visits  of  Representatives  of  various  Churches  and  Public  Bodies— His 
Melancholy— Anecdotes— His  Character, 429 

CHAPTER   XXVI. 
SESSION  OF   CONGRESS,   1863-4. — SANITARY  FAIRS. 

The  President's  Message— Proclamation  of  Amnesty— Supplementary  and  Explanatory 
Proclamation  of  March  24, 1864— Failure  of  the  Bill  establishing  a  Bureau  of  Freed- 
men's  Affairs,  and  of  the  Constitutional  Amendment  Abolishing  Slavery— Repeal  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law — Debate  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on  the  Expulsion 
of  Long  and  Harris— Case  of  General  F.  P.  Blair— U.  S.  Grant  appointed  Lieutenant- 
general— Sanitary  Fair  at  Baltimore— At  Philadelphia— At  the  Patent-office  in  Wash 
ington— Visits  and  Speeches  of  the  President— Order  in  reference  to  the  Treatment 
of  ^Colored  Soldiers— Speech  of  the  President  on  the  Subject, 457 

CHAPTER   XXVH. 

PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN   OF  1864. — RE-ELECTION  OP 
MR.   LINCOLN. 

Presidential  Election  of  1864— State  of  the  Country— Chase— Fremont— Convention  at 
Cleveland— J.  C.  Fremont  nominated  for  President— His  Reasons  for  Accepting 
the  Nomination— Withdrawal  of  his  Name— Meeting  in  New  York  in  Honor  of  Gen- 
j  «ral  Grant— Baltimore  Convention— Platform— Mr.  Lincoln  nominated  for  President 
—His  Speech  accepting  the  Nomination— Letter  to  the  Committee  of  the  Conven 
tion—Case  of  Arguelles— Congressional  Plan  of  Reconstruction— The  President's 
Proclamation— Manifesto  of  Senators  Wade  and  Davis— Peace  Negotiations— Mr. 
Greeley's  Letters— Mr.  Lincoln's  Replies— Mr.  Greeley  at  Niagara  Falls— Consulta 
tions  with  Clay  and  Holcombe— The  President's  Letter  to  H.  J.  Raymond— Demo 
cratic  Convention  at  Chicago— The  Platform— McClellan  and  Pendleton  Nominated 
— Vallandigham— Mr.  Blair  Retires  from  the  Cabinet— Mr.  Dennison  appointed  in 
his  Place— Mr.  Lincoln's  Speech  on  the  Adoption  of  a  Free  Constitution  in  Mary 
land—Protest  against  the  Tennessee  Test  Oath— The  President's  Reply— Call  for 
500,000  Men— President  Lincoln  Re-elected— His  Letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby, 467 


16  TABLE     OF     CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   XXVin. 

MILITARY  EVENTS   OF  1864. — HE-INAUGURATION  OF 
MR.   LINCOLN. 

Military  Operations  of  1864— General  Smith's  Expedition  from  Memphis— Kilpatrick's 
Raid— The  Red  River  Expedition— Surrender  of  Fort  Pillow— Battles  of  the  Wil 
derness—General  Butler  at  City  Pointr-Siege  of  Petersburg— Sherman's  Campaign 
in  Georgia— Capture  of  Atlanta— Sherman's  March  for  the  Coast— Capture  of  Sa 
vannah—General  Thomas  defeats  Hood  m  Tennessee— Sheridan  defeats  Earl/in 
the  Shenandoah  Valley — Rout  of  Price  in  Missouri — Changes  in  the  Cabinet — Death 
of  Chief-Justice  Taney,  and  Appointment  of  Mr.  Chase— Message  of  the  President 
—Passage  by  Congress  of  the  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  abolishing  Slavery- 
Call  for  300,000  Men — Peace  Conference  in  Hampton  Roads — Mr.  Lincoln's  "Story" 
— Close  of  President  Lincoln's  First  Term — His  Re-Inauguration — His  Inaugural 
Address— Resignation  of  Secretary  Fessenden— Appointment  of  Mr.  McCulloch— 
Proclamation  to  Deserters— The  Draft, 492 

CHAPTER   XXIX. 
MILITARY  EVENTS   OF  1865. — CLOSE   OF  THE   WAR. 

Sherman's  March — Occupation  of  Columbia — Evacuation  of  Charleston — Battles  of 
Averysboro  and  Bentonville— Occupation  of  Goldsboro— The  President  at  City  Point 
—Advance  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac— Defeat  of  General  Lee— Evacuation  of  Rich 
mond—Its  occupation  by  General  Weitzel— Surrender  of  General  Lee— The  Pres 
ident  and  the  Kittens— The  President  visits  Richmond— His  Interview  with  Judge 
Campbell— Negotiations  of  General  Sherman— Surrender  of  General  Johnston— End 
of  the  Rebellion— Joy  of  the  People— Popularity  of  the  President— His  Speech  at 
the  White  House, 606 

CHAPTER   XXX. 

THE    ASSASSINATION. 

Position  of  President  Lincoln  before  the  World— Plots  for  his  Assassination— Letter  of 
Mr.  Seward— The  President's  Interview  with  Speaker  Colfax— His  attendance  at 
Ford's  Theater— Enthusiasm  of  the  People  on  his  Arrival— J.  Wilkes  Booth— His 
Arrangements  for  the  Assassination— Perpetration  of  the  Deed— Escape  of  Booth- 
Death  of  the  President— Attack  upon  Mr.  Seward  and  his  Son— Profound  Grief  of 
the  Nation— Funeral  Services  at  Washington— Departure  of  the  Funeral  Train  for 
Springfield— Ceremonies  at  Baltimore— At  Harrisburg— At  Philadelphia— At  New 
York— At  Albany— At  Buffalo— At  Cleveland— At  Columbus— At  Chicago— Funeral 
Services  at  Springfield— Foreign  Expressions  of  Sympathy  with  the  Nation,  and 
with  Mr.  Lincoln's  Family— Mr.  Johnson  succeeds  to  the  Presidency— Large  Re 
wards  offered  for  the  apprehension  of  the  Murderer — He  is  traced  to  his  Hiding- 
place  and  Killed— Capture  and  Trial  of  his  Associates— Closing  Tribute  to  the  Char 
acter  and  Administration  of  Abraham  Lincoln, , 515 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK   I. 

THE  early  life  of  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  a  hard  and  humble 
backwoods  and  border  life.  As  a  boy  and  as  a  young  man, 
he  was  not  fond  of  wild  sports  and  exciting  adventures.  It 
is  doubtless  true  that  the  earlier  years  of  many  of  his  neigh 
bors  and  companions  would  be  more  engaging  to  the  pen  of 
the  biographer  and  the  imagination  of  the  reader,  than  his. 
His  later  career,  his  noble  character,  his  association  with  the 
grandest  and  most  important  events  of  American  history,  have 
alone,  or  mainly,  given  significance  and  interest  to  his  youth 
ful  experiences  of  hardship,  the  humble  processes  of  his  edu 
cation,  and  his  early  struggles  with  the  rough  forces  of  nature 
among  which  he  was  born.  The  tree  which  rose  so  high,  and 
spread  its  leaves  so  broadly,  and  bore  such  golden  fruit,  and 
then  fell  before  the  blast  because  it  was  so  heavy  and  so  high, 
has  left  its  roots  upturned  into  the  same  light  that  glorifies 
its  branches,  and  discovered  and  made  divine  the  soil  from 
which  it  drew  its  nutriment. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the  presidency  of  the 
United  States  in  1860,  it  became  desirable  that  a  sketch  of 
his  life  should  be  prepared  and  widely  distributed;  but,  upon 
being  applied  to  for  materials  for  this  sketch,  by  the  gentle 
man  who  had  undertaken  to  produce  it,*  he  seemed  oppressed 

*J.  L.  Scripps,  Esq.,  of  Chicago. 


18  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

with  a  sense  of  their  tameness  and  lowliness,  and  the  convic 
tion  that  they  could  not  be  of  the  slightest  interest  to  the 
American  people.  "  My  early  history,"  said  he,  "  is  perfectly 
characterized  by  a  single  line  of  Gray's  Elegy : 

<The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor.'" 

His  judgment  then  was  measurably  just ;  but  events  have  set 
it  aside,  and  endowed  the  humble  details  that  seemed  to  him 
so  common-place  and  mean,  with  a  profound  and  tender  in 
terest. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  born  in  that  part  of  Hardin 
County,  Kentucky,  now  embraced  by  the  lines  of  the  recently 
formed  county  of  Larue,  on  the  12th  of  February,  1809.  A 
region  more  remarkably  picturesque  was  at  that  time  hardly 
to  be  found  in  all  the  newly-opened  country  of  the  West. 
Variegated  and  rolling  in  its  surface,  about  two-thirds  of  it 
timbered  and  fertile,  the  remainder  composed  of  barrens,  sup 
porting  only  black-jacks  and  post-oaks,  and  spreading  into 
plains,  or  rising  into  knolls  or  knobs,  and  watered  by  beauti 
ful  and  abundant  streams,  it  was  as  attractive  to  the  eye  of 
the  lover  of  nature  as  to  the  enterprise  of  the  agriculturist 
and  the  passion  of  the  hunter.  Some  of  the  knobs  rising  out 
of  the  barrens  reach  a  considerable  elevation,  and  are  digni 
fied  by  the  name  of  mountains.  "  Shiny  Mountain  "  is  one 
of  the  most  lovely  of  these,  giving  a  view  of  the  whole  valley 
of  the  Nolin.  A  still  larger  knob  is  the  "  Blue  Ball,"  from 
whose  summit  one  may  see,  on  a  fair  morning,  the  fog  rising 
from  the  Ohio  River,  twenty  miles  away. 

In  a  rude  log  cabin,  planted  among  these  scenes,  the  sub 
ject  of  this  biography  opened  his  eyes.  The  cabin  was  situ 
ated  on  or  near  Nolin  Creek,  about  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
Hodgenville,  the  present  county  seat  of  Larue  County.  Here 
he  spent  the  first  year  or  two  of  his  childhood,  when  he  re 
moved  to  a  cabin  on  Knob  Creek,  on  the  road  from  Bardstown. 
Kentucky,  to  Nashville,  Tennessee ;  at  a  point  three  and  a 
half  miles  south  or  southwest  of  Atherton's  Ferry,  (on  the 
Rolling  Fork,)  and  six  miles  from  Hodgenville.  It  was  in 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  19 

these  two  homes*  that  he  spent  the  first  seven  years  of  his 
life  ;  but  before  saying  anything  of  those  years,  it  will  be  best 
to  tell  how  his  parents  found  their  way  into  the  wilderness, 
and  to  record  what  is  known  of  his  family  history. 

In  1769,  Daniel  Boone,  at  the  head  of  a  small  and  hardy 
party  of  adventurers,  set  out  from  his  home  on  the  Yadkin 
[River,  in  South  Carolina,  to  explore  that  part  of  Virginia 
which  he  then  knew  as  "The  Country  of  Kentucky."  After 
participating  in  the  most  daring  and  dangerous  adventures, 
and  suffering  almost  incredible  hardships,  he  returned,  abund 
antly  rewarded  with  peltry,  in  1771.  Two  years  after  this, 
he  undertook  to  remove  his  family  to  the  region  which  had 
entirely  captivated  his  imagination  ;  but  it  was  not  until  1775 
that  his  purpose  was  accomplished.  This  brave  and  widely- 
renowned  pioneer,  with  those  who  accompanied  him  and  those 
who  were  attracted  to  the  region  by  the  reports  which  he  had 
carried  back  to  the  Eastern  settlements,  lived  a  life  of  constant 
exposure  to  Indian  warfare  ;  but  danger  seemed  only  to  sharp 
en  the  spirit  of  adventure,  and  to  attract  rather  than  repel 
immigration. 

Among  those  for  whom  "The  Country  of  Kentucky"  had 
its  savage  charms  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  grandfather  of 
the  President,  then  living  in  Kockinghani  County,  Virginia. 
Why  he  should  have  left  the  beautiful  and  fertile  valley  of  the 
Shenandoah  for  the  savage  wilds  West  of  him  cannot  be 
known,  but  he  only  repeated  the  mystery  of  pioneer  life — 
the  greed  for  something  newer  and  wilder  and  more  danger 
ous  than  that  which  surrounded  him.  His  removal  to  Ken 
tucky  took  place  about  1780.  Of  the  journey,  we  have  no 
record ;  but  we  know  that  at  that  date  it  must  have  been  one 
of  great  hardship,  as  he  was  accompanied  by  a  young  and 
tender  family.  The  spot  upon  which  he  built  is  not  known, 

*Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  manuscript  record  of  his  life  dictated  to  J.  G. 
Nicolay,  makes  mention  of  but  one  home  in  Kentucky.  Scripps'  me 
moir,  also  gathered  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  lips,  is  silent  on  the  subject;  but 
Barrett's  Campaign  Life  of  Lincoln  gives  the  statement  circumstantially, 
and  is  probably  correct. 


20  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

though  it  is  believed  to  have  been  somewhere  on  Floyd's 
Creek,  in  what  is  now  Bullitt  County.  Hardly  more  of  his 
history  is  preserved  than  that  which  relates  to  his  death.  In 
1784,  while  at  work  in  the  field,  at  a  distance  from  his  cabin, 
he  was  stealthily  approached  by  an  Indian,  and  shot  dead. 

The  care  of  five  helpless  children  was,  by  this  murder, 
thrown  upon  his  widow.  She  subsequently  removed  to  a 
place  now  embraced  within  the  limits  of  Washington  County, 
and  there  she  reared,  in  such  rude  ways  as  necessity  pre 
scribed,  her  little  brood.  Three  of  these  children,  sons,  were 
named  in  the  order  of  their  birth,  Mordecai,  Josiah  and 
Thomas.  The  two  daughters  were  named  respectively  Mary 
and  Nancy.  Mordecai  remained  in  Kentucky  until  late  in 
life,  but  a  short  time  before  his  death,  removed  to  Hancock 
County,  Illinois,  where  several  of  his  descendants  still  reside. 
Josiah,  the  second  son,  removed  while  a  young  man  to  what 
is  now  Harrison  County,  Indiana.  Thomas,  the  third  son, 
was  the  father  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  illustrious  subject  of 
this  biography.  Mary  Lincoln  was  married  to  Ealph  Crume, 
and  Nancy  to  William  Brumfield.  The  descendants  of  these 
women  still  reside  in  Kentucky.  All  these  children  were 
probably  born  in  Virginia, — Thomas,  in  1778, — so  that  he 
was  only  about  two  years  old  when  his  father  emigrated. 

Tracing  the  family  still  further,  we  find  that  Abraham,  the 
emigrant,  had  four  brothers :  Isaac,  Jacob,  John  and  Thomas. 
The  descendants  of  Jacob  and  John  are  supposed  to  be  still 
in  Virginia,  Isaac  emigrated  to  the  region  where  Virginia, 

o  O  C^  O  ' 

North  Carolina  and  Tennessee  unite,  and  his  descendants  are 
there.  Thomas  went  to  Kentucky,  probably  later  than  his 
brother  Abraham,  where  he  lived  many  years,  and  where  he 
died.  His  descendants  went  to  Missouri. 

Further  back  than  this  it  is  difficult  to  go.  The  most  that 
is  known,  is,  that  the  Lincolns  of  Eockingham  County,  Vir 
ginia,  came,  previous  to  1752,  from  Berks  County,  Pennsyl 
vania.  Where  the  Lincolns  of  Berks  County  came  from,  no 
record  has  disclosed.  They  are  believed  to  have  been  Quakers, 
but  whether  they  were  an  original  importation  from  Old  Eng- 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LIXCOLX.  21 

land,  under  the  auspices  of  William  Penn,  or  a  pioneer  off 
shoot  from  the  Lincolns  of  New  England,  does  not  appear. 
There  is  the  strongest  presumptive  evidence  that  the  Penn 
sylvania  and  New  England  Lincolns  were  identical  in  their 
family  blood.  The  argument  for  this  identity  rests  mainly 
upon  the  coincidences  which  the  Christian  names  of  the  two 
families  present.  Three  Lincolns  who  came  from  Hingham, 
in  England,  and  settled  in  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  between 
1633  and  1637,  bore  the  Christian  name  of  Thomas.  Anoth 
er  bore  the  name  of  Samuel,  and  he  had  three  sons :  Daniel, 
Mordecai  and  Thomas.  Mordecai  was  the  father  of  Morde- 
cai,  who  was  born  in  1686.  He  was  alsg  the  father  of  Abra 
ham,  born  in  1689.  About  1750,  there  were  two  Mordecai 
Lincolns  in  the  town  of  Taunton.*  Here  we  have  the  three 
names :  Mordccai,  Thomas  and  Abraham,  in  frequent  and  fa 
miliar  family  use.  Passing  to  the  Pennsylvania  family,  we 
find  that  among  the  taxable  inhabitants  of  Exeter,  Berks. 
County,  Pennsylvania,  there  were,  soon  after  1752,  Mordecai 
and  Abraham  Lincoln ;  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  living  in 
Reading  as  early  as  1757,  and  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  of 
Berks  County,  was  in  various  public  offices  in  the  state  from 
1782  to  1790.f 

It  has  already  been  seen  that  these  names  have  been  per 
petuated  among  the  later  generations  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Lincolns,  and  that  the  three  names — Abraham,  Mordecai 
and  Thomas — were  all  embraced  in  the  family*  out  of  which 
the  President  sprang.  The  argument  thus  based  upon  the 
identity  of  favorite  family  names  (and  one  of  those  quite  an 
unusual  name,)  is  very  strong  in  establishing  identity  of 
Wood,  though,  of  course,  it  is  not  entirely  conclusive.  It  is 
Bufficient,  certainly,  in  the  absence  of  a  reliable  record,  to 
make  the  theory  plausible  which  transfers  a  Quaker  from  the 
unfriendly  soil  of  Massachusetts  to  the  paradise  of  Quakers 
in  Pennsylvania.  It  is  highly  probable  that  an  exceptional 

*Rev.  Elias  Nason's  Eulogy  before  the  N.  E.  Historic-Geneological 
Society,  at  Boston,  May  3,  1865. 
•fRupp's  History  of  Berks  and  Lebanon  Counties,  Pennsylvania. 


22  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Quaker  among  the  Massachusetts  Puritan  family  went,  with 
other  New  Englanders,  to  Berks  County  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
that  the  blood  which  has  given  to  New  England  a  considera 
ble  number  of  most  honorable  names,  has  given  to  the  nation, 
one  of  the  noblest  that  adorn  its  annals. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  the  father  of  the  President,  was  made,  by 
the  early  death  of  his  father  and  the  straitened  circumstances 
of  his  mother,  a  wandering,  laboring,  ignorant  boy.  He 
grew  up  without  any  education.  He  really  never  learned 
anything  of  letters  except  those  which  composed  his  own 
name.  This  he  could  write  clumsily,  but  legibly,  and  this  he 
did  write  without  any  knowledge  of  the  names  and  powers  of 
the  letters  which  composed  it.  While  a  lad  not  fully  grown, 
he  passed  a  year  as  a  hired  field  hand  on  "Wataga,  a  branch 
of  the  Holston  Eiver,  in  the  employ  of  his  Uncle  Isaac.  With 
out  money  or  the  opportunity  to  acquire  it,  all  the  early  years 
of  his  life  were  passed  in  labor  for  others,  at  such  wages  as 
he  could  command,  or  in  hunting  the  game  with  which  the  re 
gion  abounded.  It  was  not  until  he  had  reached  his  twenty- 
eighth  year  that  he  found  it  practicable  to  settle  in  life,  and 
make  for  himself  a  home.  He  married  Nancy  Hanks,  in 
1808.  She  was  born  in  Virginia,  and  was  probably  a  relative 
of  one  of  the  early  immigrants  into  Kentucky.  He  took  her  to 
the  humble  cabin  he  had  prepared  for  her,  already  alluded  to  as 
the  birth-place  of  the  President,  and  within  the  first  few  years 
of  her  married  life,  she  bore  him  three  children.  The  first 
was  a  daughter  named  Sarah,  who  married  when  a  child,  and 
died  many  years  ago,  leaving  no  issue.  The  third  was  a  son, 
(Thomas,)  who  died  in  infancy.  The  second  was  Abraham, 
who,  born  into  the  humblest  abode,  under  the  humblest  circum-i 
stances,  raised  himself  by  the  force  of  native  gifts  of  heart  and 
brain,  and  by  the  culture  and  power  achieved  by  his  own  will 
and  industry,  under  the  blessing  of  a  Providence  which  he 
always  recognized,  to  sit  in  the  highest  place  in  the  land,  and 
to  preside  over  the  destinies  of  thirty  millions  of  people. 

From  such  materials  as  are  readily  accessible,  let  us  paint 
a  picture  of  the  little  family.  Thomas  Lincoln,  the  father, 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  23 

was  a  well  built,  sinewy  man,  about  five  feet  ten  and  a  half 
inches  high,,  dressed  in  the  humble  garb  which  his  poverty 
compelled  and  the  rude  art  of  the  time  and  locality  produced. 
Though  a  rover  by  habit  and  native  tastes,  he  was  not  a  man 
of  enterprise.  He  was  a  good-natured  man,  a  man  of  un 
doubted  integrity,  but  inefficient  in  making  his  way  in  the 
world,  arid  improvident  of  the  slender  means  at  his  command. 
He  was  a  man,  however,  whom  everybody  loved,  and  who 
held  the  wirm  affection  of  his  eminent  son  throughout  his 
life.  He  attributed  much  of  his  hard  fortune  to  his  lack  of 
education,  and  in  one  thing,  at  least,  showed  himself  more 
wisely  provident  than  the  majority  of  his  neighbors.  He  de 
termined,  at  any  possible  sacrifice,  to  give  his  children  the 
best  education  that  the  schools  of  the  locality  afforded. 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  mother,  was  evidently  a  woman  out  of 
place  among  those  primitive  surroundings.  She  was  five  feet> 
five  inches  high,  a  slender,  pale,  sad  and  sensitive  woman, 
with  much  in  her  nature  that  was  truly  heroic,  and  much  that 
shrank  from  the  rude  life  around  her.  A  great  man  never 
drew  his  infant  life  from  a  purer  or  more  womanly  bosom  than 
her  own ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  always  looked  back  to  her  with 
an  unspeakable  affection.  Long  after  her  sensitive  heart  and 
weary  hands  had  crumbled  into  dust,  and  had  climbed  to  life 
again  in  forest  flowers,  he  said  to  a  friend,  with  tears  in  his 
eyes :  "  All  that  I  am,  or  hope  to  be,  I  owe  to  my  angel 
mother — blessings  on  her  memory !  " 

Here  was  the  home  and  here  were  its  occupants,  all  hum 
ble,  all  miserably  poor ;  yet  it  was  a  home  of  love  and  of 
virtue.  Both  father  and  mother  were  religious  persons,  and 
sought  at  the  earliest  moment  to  impress  the  minds  of  thek 
children  with  religious  truth.  The  mother,  though  not  a 
ready  writer,  could  read.  Books  were  scarce,  but  occasion 
ally  an  estray  was  caught  and  eagerly  devoured.  Abraham 
and  his  sister  often  sat  at  her  feet  to  hear  of  scenes  and  deeds 
that  roused  their  young  imaginations,  and  fed  their  hungry 
minds. 

Schools  in  Kentucky  were,  in  those  days,  scarce  and  very 


24  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

poor.  Nothing  more  than  instruction  in  the  rudiments  of 
education  was  attempted.  Zachariah  Riney  was  Abraham's 
first  teacher.  Riney  was  a  Catholic,  and  though  the  Protest 
ant  children  in  his  charge  were  commanded,  or  permitted,  to 
retire  when  any  of  his  peculiar  religious  ceremonies  or  exer 
cises  were  in  progress,  Mr.  Lincoln  always  entertained  a 
pleasant  and  grateful  memory  of  him.  He  began  his  attend 
ance  upon  Mr.  Riney's  school  when  he  was  in  his  seventh 
year,  but  could  hardly  have  continued  it  beyond  a  period  of 
two  or  three  months.  His  next  teacher  was  Caleb  Hazel,  a 
fine  young  man,  whose  school  he  attended  for  about  three 
months.  The  boy  was  diligent,  and  actually  learned  to  write 
an  intelligible  letter  during  this  period. 

If  the  schools  of  the  region  were  rude  and  irregular,  its 
religious  institutions  were  still  more  so.  Public  religious 

O  O 

worship  was  observed  in  the  neighborhood  only  at  long  inter 
vals,  and  then  under  the  charge  of  roving  preachers,  who, 
ranging  over  immense  tracts  of  territory,  and  living  on  their 
horses  and  in  the  huts  of  the  settlers,  called  the  people  to 
gether  under  trees  or  cabin-roofs,  and  spoke  to  them  simply 
of  the  great  truths  of  Christianity.  The  preachers  themselves 
were  peculiar  persons,  made  so  by  the  peculiarity  of  their  cir 
cumstances  and  pursuits.  For  many  years,  Abraham  Lincoln 
never  saw  a  church  ;  but  he  heard  Parson  Elkin  preach.  At 
intervals  of  several  months,  the  good  parson  held  meetings  in 
the  neighborhood.  He  was  a  Baptist,  and  Thomas  and  Nancy 
Lincoln  were  members  of  that  communion.  Abraham's  first 
ideas  of  public  speech  were  gathered  from  the  simple  ad 
dresses  of  this  humble  and  devoted  itinerant,  and  the  boy 
gave  evidence  afterwards,  as  we  shall  see,  that  he  remembered 
him  with  interest  and  affection. 

"When  inefficient  men  become  very  uncomfortable,  they  are 
quite  likely  to  try  emigration  as  a  remedy.  A  good  deal  of 
what  is  called  "  the  pioneer  spirit "  is  simply  a  spirit  of  shift 
less  discontent.  Possibly  there  was  something  of  this  spirit 
in  Thomas  Lincoln.  It  is  true,  at  least,  that  when  Abraham 
was  about  seven  years  old,  his  father  became  possessed  with 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  25 

the  desire  to  sell  his  little  home,  and  remove  to  another,  in 
some  fairer  wilderness.  It  is  probable,  also,  that  he  did  not 
like  to  rear  his  children  in  Kentucky.  lie  had  been  wise 
enough  to  appreciate  the  advantages  of  education  to  his  chil 
dren,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  he  shrank  from  seeing  them 
grow  up  in  a  community  cursed  with  slavery.  The  state 
having  outgrown,  with  marvelous  rapidity,  its  ruder  condi 
tions,  and  become  populous  and  powerful,  was  already  the 
home  of  an  institution  which  branded  labor  with  disgrace, 
and  made  the  position  of  the  poor  whites  a  hopeless  one. 
He  could  see  nothing  in  the  future,  for  himself  or  his  boy,  but 
labor  by  the  side  of  the  negro,  and  degradation  in  his  pres- 
ejice  and  companionship. 

Mr.  Lincoln  himself  never  attributed  his  father's  desire  to 
remove  from  Kentucky  to  his  dislike  of  slavery,  as  a  principal 
motive.  Kentucky,  more  than  most  of  the  new  states,  was 
cursed  with  defective  land-titles.  Daniel  Boone  nimself,  with 
hundreds  of  others  who  had  shared  with  him  the  dangers  of 
pioneer  life,  was  dispossessed  of  nearly  all  his  lands,  after  hav 
ing  lived  upon  them  for  years,  and  rendered  them  very  valu 
able  by  improvements.  It  was  mainly  to  this  difficulty,  of 
getting  a  valid  title  to  land,  that  Abraham  Lincoln  attributed 
his  father's  desire  and  determination  to  remove  to  another 
state. 

Thomas  Lincoln  found  a  purchaser,  at  last,  for  his  home. 
He  bartered  it  away  for  ten  barrels  of  whisky  and  twenty 
dollars  in  money,  the  whole  representing  the  sum  of  three 
hundred  dollars,  his  price  for  the  place.*  After  building  a 
flat-boat  and  launching  it  upon  the  Rolling  Fork,  he  loaded 
it  with  his  stock  of  whisky,  and  all  the  heavier  household  wares 
of  which  he  was  possessed,  pushed  off  alone,  and  floated  safely 
down  to  the  Ohio  River.  Here  he  met  with  aji  accident — a 
wreck,  indeed.  The  flat-boat  was  upset,  and  two-thirds  of  his 
whisky  and  many  of  his  housekeeping  utensils  and  farming 
and  other  tools  were  lost.  Meeting  with  assistance,  his  boat 

*  William  M.  Thayer's  "  Pioneer  Boy,"  a  singularly  faithful  statement 
of  the  early  experiences  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


26  LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

was  righted,  and  everything  saved  that  it  was  found  practica 
ble  to  gather  from  the  bottom  of  the  river.  Landing  at 
Thompson's  Ferry,  he  procured  carriage  for  his  goods  about 
eighteen  miles  into  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  where,  in  almost 
an  unbroken  wilderness,  he  determined  to  settle.  Leaving 
his  goods  in  the  care  of  a  settler,  he  returned  to  Thompson's 
Ferry,  and  then,  on  foot,  took  as  nearly  as  possible  a  bee-line 
for  home,  where  he  arrived  in  due  time.  It  was  probably 
during  the  absence  of  the  father  on  his  preliminary  trip  that 
the  mother  paid  her  last  tribute  of  affection  to  the  little  one 
she  had  buried,  by  visiting  its  grave,  in  company  with  her 
living  boy — an  incident  which  he  remembered  with  tender 
interest. 

This  voyage  was  made  in  the  autumn  of  1816,  when  Abra 
ham  was  in  his  eighth  year,  and  it  was  followed  by  the  im 
mediate  removal  of  the  whole  family.  The  journey  to  the  new 
home  was  made  overland,  upon  three  horses  which  carried  in 
packs  the  bedding,  wardrobe  and  all  the  lighter  effects  of  the 
family.  The  humble  cavalcade  occupied  seven  days  in  the 
journey.  At  the  end  of  it,  the  emigrants  met  with  neighborly 
assistance  in  the  erection  of  a  dwelling,  and  were  soon  housed 
and  ready  to  begin  life  anew. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  the  character  of  the  material 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  received,  in  principal,  as  the  payment  for 
his  little  homestead  in  Kentucky,  and  transferred  to  his  new 
home  in  Indiana,  that  he  was  addicted  to  the  vice  of  strong 
drink.  In  those  days,  alcoholic  liquors  were  in  general  use 
among  the  settlers,  not  only  as  a  beverage,  but  as  a  remedial 
agent  in  the  treatment  of  the  diseases  peculiar  to  the  new  set 
tlements  of  the  West.  The  same  liquors  were  used  with  the 
same  freedom  among  all  classes  at  the  East,  at  that  date,  with 
out  a  thoughtpof  evil.  Mr.  Lincoln  supposed  he  was  receiv 
ing  a  commodity  which  would  be  of  great  value  to  him  in  the 
new  regions  of  Indiana,  where  distillation  had  not  been  at 
tempted  ;  and  he  doubtless  found  a  ready  market  for  the  frac 
tion  of  the  cargo  which  he  had  saved  from  the  river. 


CHAPTEK   II. 

THE  point  at  which  the  Lincoln  family  settled  in  Indiana 
was  not  far  from  the  present  town  of  Gentryville.  The  cam 
paign  biographers  of  Abraham  attribute  to  him  some  valuable 
service  with  the  ax,  both  in  building  the  cabin  and  in  clear 
ing  the  forest  around  it ;  but,  at  the  age  of  seven,  he  could 
hardly  have  rendered  much  assistance  in  these  offices.  We 
are  told  that  he  had  an  ax;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  he 
learned  at  an  early  age  to  use  it  effectually.  Indeed,  his 
muscles  were  formed  and  hardened  by  this  exercise,  continued 
through  all  the  years  of  his  young  manhood.  It  has  already 
been  stated  that  he  had  no  taste  for  the  sports  of  the  forest ; 
but  he  made  an  early  shot,  with  a  result  that  must  have  sur 
prised  him  and  his"  family.  While  yet  a  child,  he  saw  through 
a  crack  in  the  cabin  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys,  feeding.  He 
ventured  to  take  down  his  father's  rifle,  and,  firing  through 
the  crack,  killed  one  of  them.  This  was  the  largest  game 
upon  which  he  ever  pulled  trigger,  his  brilliant  success  having 
no  power  to  excite  in  him  the  passion  for  hunting. 

Among  the  most  untoward  circumstances,  Thomas  Lincoln 
embraced  every  opportunity  to  give  Abraham  an  education. 
At  different  periods,  all  of  them  brief,  he  attended  the  neigh 
borhood  schools  that  were  opened  to  him.  Andrew  Crawford 
taught  one  of  these,  a  Mr.  Sweeney  another,  and  Azel  ~W. 
Dorsey  another,  the  last  of  whom  lived  to  see  his  humble 
pupil  a  man  of  eminence,  and  to  congratulate  him  upon  his 
elevation.  One  year,  however,  would  cover  all  the  tune  spent 


28  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

by  him  with  his  two  Kentucky  teachers,  and  the  three  whoso 
schools  he  attended  in  Indiana ;  and  all  the  school  education 
of  his  life  was  embraced  by  the  limits  of  this  one  year. 

It  is  very  difficult  for  any  one  bred  in  the  older  communi 
ties  of  the  country  to  appreciate  the  extreme  humility  of  border 
life,  the  meagerness  and  meanness  of  its  household  appoint 
ments,  and  the  paucity  of  its  stimulants  to  mental  growth  and 
social  development.  The  bed  in  which  the  elder  Lincolns, 
and,  on  very  cold  nights,  the  little  Lincolns,  slept,  during  their 
first  years  in  Indiana,  was  one  whose  rudeness  will  give  a  key 
to  the  kind  of  life  which  they  lived  there.  The  head  and  one 
side  of  the  bedstead  were  formed  by  an  angle  of  the  cabin 
itself.  The  bed-post  standing  out  into  the  room  was  a  single 
crotch,  cut  from  the  forest.  Laid  upon  this  crotch  were  the 
ends  of  two  hickory  sticks,  whose  other  extremities  were  mor 
ticed  into  the  logs,  the  two  sides  of  the  cabin  and  the  two  rails 
embracing  a  quadrilateral  space  of  the  required  dimensions. 
This  was  bridged  by  slats  "  rived  "  from  the  forest  log,  and  on 
the  slats  was  laid  a  sack  filled  with  dried  leaves.  This  was, 
in  reality,  the  bed  of  Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln ;  and  into 
it,  when  the  skins  hung  at  the  cabin  doorway  did  not  keep  out 
the  cold,  Abraham  and  his  sister  crept  for  the  warmth  which 
their  still  ruder  couch  upon  the  ground  denied  them. 

The  lot  of  the  little  family,  already  sadly  dark,  was  rendered 
inexpressibly  gloomy  at  an  early  day  by  an  event  which  made 
a  profound  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  boy — an  impres 
sion  that  probably  never  wore  away  during  all  the  eventful 
years  that  followed.  His  delicate  mother  bent  to  the  dust 
under  the  burden  of  life  which  circumstances  had  imposed 
upon  her.  A  quick  consumption  seized  her,  and  her  life  went 
*  out  in  the  flashing  fevers  of  her  disease.  The  boy  and  hi^ 
sister  were  orphans,  and  the  humble  home  in  the  wilderness 
was  desolate.  Her  death  occurred  in  1818,  scarcely  two  years 
after  her  removal  to  Indiana,  and  when  Abraham  was  in  his 
tenth  year.  They  laid  her  to  rest  under  the  trees  near  the 
cabin,  and,  sitting  on  her  grave,  the  little  boy  wept  his  irre 
parable  loss.  There  were  probably  none  but  the  simplest 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  2ty 

ceremonies  at  her  "burial,  and  neither  father  nor  son  was  content 
to  part  with  her  without  a  formal  Christian  tribute  to  her 
worth  and  memory.  Both  thought  of  the  good  Parson  Elkin 
whom  they  had  left  in  Kentucky ;  and  Abraham's  skill  in 
writing  was  brought  into  use  in  addressing  to  him  a  message. 
His  imperfect  penmanship  had  been  acquired  partly  in  the 
schools  he  had  attended,  and  partly  by  practice  in  the  sand 
and  on  the  barks  of  trees — on  anything  and  with  any  instru 
ment  by  which  letters  might  be  formed. 

Several  months  after  Mrs.  Lincoln  died,  Abraham  wrote  a 
letter  to  Parson  Elkin,  informing  him  of  his  mother's  death, 
and  begging  him  to  come  to  Indiana,  and  preach  her  funeral 
sermon.  It  was  a  great  favor  that  he  thus  asked  of  the  poor 
preacher.  It  would  require  him  to  ride  on  horseback  nearly 
a  hundred  miles  through  the  wilderness;  and  it  is  something 
to  be  remembered  to  the  humble  itinerant's  honor  that  he  was 
willing  to  pay  this  tribute  of  respect  to  the  woman  who  had 
SO  thoroughly  honored  him  and  his  sacred  office.  He  replied 
to  Abraham's  invitation,  that  he  would  preach  the  sermon  on 
a  certain  future  Sunday,  and  gave  him  liberty  to  notify  the 
neighbors  of  the  promised  service. 

As  the  appointed  day  approached,  notice  was  given  to  the 
whole  neighborhood,  embracing  every  family  within  twenty 
miles.  Neighbor  carried  the  notice  to  neighbor.  It  was  scat 
tered  from  every  little  school.  There  was  probably  not  a 
family  that  did  not  receive  intelligence  of  the  anxiously  antic 
ipated  event. 

On  a  bright  Sabbath  morning,  the  settlers  of  the  region 
started  for  the  cabin  of  the  Lincolns ;  and,'  as  they  gathered 
in,  they  presented  a  picture  worthy  the  pencil  of  the  worthiest 
painter.  Some  came  in  carts  of  the  rudest  construction,  their 
wheels  consisting  of  sections  of  the  huge  boles  of  forest  trees, 
<s.nd  every  other  member  the  product  of  the  ax  and  auger; 
some  came  on  horseback,  two  or  three  upon  a  horse ;  others 
came  in  wagons  drawn  by  oxen,  and  still  others  came  on  foot. 
Two  hundred  persons  in  all  were  assembled  when  Parson  Elkin 
came  out  from  the  Lincoln  cabin,  accompanied  by  the  little 


30  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

family,  and  proceeded  to  the  tree  under  which  the  precious 
dust  of  a  wife  and  mother  was  buried.  The  congregation, 
seated  upon  stumps  and  logs  around  the  grave,  received  the 
preacher  and  the  mourning  family  in  a  silence  broken  only  by 
the  songs  of  birds,  and  the  murmur  of  insects,  or  the  creaking 
cart  of  some  late  comer.  Taking  his  stand  at  the  foot  of  the 
grave,, Parson  Elkin  lifted  his  voice  in  prayer  and  sacred  song, 
and  then  preached  a  sermon.  The  occasion,  the  eager  faces 
around  him,  and  all  the  sweet  influences  of  the  morning,  inspired 
him  with  an  unusual  fluency  and  fervor;  and  the  flickering 
sunlight,  as  it  glanced  through  the  wind-parted  leaves,  caught 
many  a  tear  upon  the  bronzed  cheeks  of  his  auditors,  while 
father  and  son  were  overcome  by  the  revival  of  their  great 
grief.  He  spoke  of  the  precious  Christian  woman  who  had 
gone  with  the  warm  praise  which  she  deserved,  and  held  her 
up  as  an  example  of  true  womanhood. 

Those  who  knew  the  tender  and  reverent  spirit  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  later  in  life,  will  not  doubt  that  he  returned  to  his 
cabin-home  deeply  impressed  by  all  that  he  had  heard.  It 
was  the  rounding  up  for  him  of  the  influences  of  a  Christian 
mother's  life  and  teachings.  It  recalled  her  sweet  and  patient 
example,  her  assiduous  efforts  to  inspire  him  with  pure  and 
noble  motives,  her  simple  instructions  in  divine  truth,  her  de 
voted  love  for  him,  and  the  motherly  offices  she  had  rendered 
him  during  all  his  tender  years.  His  character  was  planted  in 
this  Christian  mother's  life.  Its  roots  were  fed  by  this  Chris 
tian  mother's  love ;  and  those  who  have  wondered  at  the  truth 
fulness  and  earnestness  of  his  mature  character,  have  only  to  re 
member  that  the  tree  was  true  to  the  soil  from  which  it  sprang. 

Abraham,  at  an  early  day,  became  a  reader.  Every  book 
upon  which  he  could  lay  his  hands  he  read.  He  became  a 
writer  also.  The  majority  of  the  settlers  around  him  were 
entirely  illiterate,  and  when  it  became  known  that  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  boy  could  write,  his  services  were  in  frequent  request 
by  them  in  sending  epistolary  messages  to  their  friends.  In 
the  composition  of  these  letters  his  early  habits  of  putting 
the  thoughts  of  others  as  well  as  his  own  into  language  were 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  31 

formed.  The  exercise  was,  indeed,  as  good  as  a  school  to 
him ;  for  there  is  no  better  discipline,  for  any  mind,  than  that 
of  giving  definite  expression  to  thought  in  language.  Much 
of  his  subsequent  power  as  a  writer  and  speaker  was  undoubt 
edly  traceable  to  this  early  discipline.  . 

The  books  which  Abraham  had  the  early  privilege  of  read 
ing  were  the  Bible,  much  of  which  he  could  repeat,  JEsop's 
Fables,  all  of  which  he  could  repeat,  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
Weems'  Life  of  Washington,  and  a  Life  of  Henry  Clay  which 
his  mother  had  managed  to  purchase  for  him.  Subsequently 
he  read  the  Life  of  Franklin  and  Ramsay's  Life  of  Wash 
ington.  In  these  books,  read  and  re-read,  he  found  meat 
for  his  hungry  mind.  The  Holy  Bible,  JEsop  and  John  Bun- 
yan: — could  three  better  books  have  been  chosen  for  him 
from  the  richest  library  ?  For  those  who  have  witnessed  the 
dissipating  effects  of  many  books  upon  the  minds  of  modern 
children  it  is  not  hard  to  believe  that  Abraham's  poverty  of 
books  was  the  wealth  of  his  life.  These  three  books  did  much 
to  perfect  that  which  his  mother's  teachings  had  begun,  and 
to  form  a  character  which  for  quaint  simplicity,  earnestness, 
truthfulness  and  purity  has  never  been  surpassed  among  the 
historic  personages  of  the  world.  The  Life  of  Washington, 
while  it  gave  to  him  a  lofty  example  of  patriotism,  incidentally 
conveyed  to  his  mind  a  general  knowledge  of  American  his 
tory  ;  and  the  Life  of  Henry  Clay  spoke  to  him  of  a  living 
man  who  had  risen  to  political  and  professional  eminence  from 
circumstances  almost  as  humble  as  his  own.  The  latter  book 
undoubtedly  did  much  to  excite  his  taste  for  politic^,  to  kindle 
his  ambition,  and  to  make  him  a  warm  admirer  and  partizan 
of  Henry  Clay.  Abraham  must  have  been  very  young  when 
he  read  Weems'  Life  of  Washington,  and  we  catch  a  glimpse 
of  his  precocity  in  the  thoughts  which  it  excited,  as  revealed 
by  himself  in  a  speech  made  to  the  New  Jersey  Senate,  while 
on  his  way  to  Washington  to  assume  the  duties  of  the  Presi 
dency.  Alluding  to  his  early  reading  of  this  book,  he  says : 
"  I  remember  all  the  accounts  there  given  of  the  battle  fields 
and  struggles  for  the  liberties  of  the  country,  and  none  fixed 


32  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

themselves  upon  my  imagination  so  deeply  as  the  struggle 
here  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey.  *  ''  •  *  I  recollect  thinking  then, 
~boy  even  though  I  ivas,  that  there  must  have  been  something  more 
than  common  that  those  men  struggled  for."  Even  at  this  age, 
he  was  not  only  an  interested  reader  of  the  story,  but  a  stu 
dent  of  motives. 

Ramsay's  Life  of  Washington  was  borrowed  from  his  teach 
er,  Andrew  Crawford,  and  an  anecdote  connected  with  it  illus 
trates  Abraham's  conscientiousness  and  characteristic  honesty. 
The  borrowed  book  was  left  unguardedly  in  an  open  window, 
A  shower  coming  on,  it  was  wet  and  nearly  ruined.  Abraham 
carried  it  to  Mr.  Crawford  in  great  grief  and  alarm,  and,  after 
explaining  the  accident,  offered  to  pay  for  the  book  in  labor. 
Mr.  Crawford  accepted  the  proposal,  and  the  lad  "  pulled  fod 
der"  three  days  to  pay,  not  for  the  damages,  but  for  the  book 
itself,  which  thus  became  one  of  his  own  literary  treasures. 

In  the  autumn  or  early  winter  of  1819,  somewhat  more 
than  a  year  after  the  death  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Abraham  passed 
into  the  care  of  a  step-mother.  His  father  married  and  brought 
to  his  home  in  Indiana,  Mrs.  Sally  Johnston,  of  Elizabethtown, 
Kentucky,  undoubtedly  one  of  his  old  acquaintances.  She 
brought  with  her  three  children,  the  fruit  of  her  previous 
marriage ;  but  she  faithfully  fulfilled  her  assumed  maternal 
duties  to  Thomas  Lincoln's  children.  The  two  families  grew 
up  in  harmony  together,  and  the  many  kind  offices  which  she 
performed  for  Abraham  were  gratefully  returned  then  and  in 
after  years  by  him.  She  still  survives,  'having  seen  her  young 
charge  rise  to  be  her  own  ruler,  and  the  ruler  of  the  nation, 
and  to  fall  amid  expressions  of  grief  from  the  whole  civilized 
world. 

As  Abraham  grew  up,  he  became  increasingly  helpful  in  all 
the  work  of  the  farm,  often  going  out  to  labor  by  the  day  for 
hire.  Abundant  evidence  exists  that  he  was  regarded  by  the 
neighbors  as  being  remarkable,  in  many  respects,  above  the  lads 
of  his  own  age,  with  whom  he  associated.  In  physical  strength 
and  sundry  athletic  feats,  he  was  the  master  of  them  all. 
Never  quarrelsome  or  disposed  to  make  an  unpleasant  show 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  33 

of  his  prowess,  he  was  ready  to  help  all  who  were  in  need  of 
help,  to  do  their  errands,  write  their  letters,  and  lighten  their 

burdens. 

An  instance  of  his  practical  humanity  at  this  early  period 
of  his  life  may  be  recorded.  One  evening,  while  returning 
from  a  "raising"  in  his  wide  neighborhood,  with  a  number  of 
companions,  he  discovered  a  straying  horse,  with  saddle  and 
bridle  upon  him.  The  horse  was  recognized  as  belonging  to 
a  man  who  was  accustomed  to  excess  in  drink,  and  it  was  sus 
pected  at  once  that  the  owner  was  not  far  off.  A  short  search 
only  was  necessary  to  confirm  the  suspicions  of  the  young 
men.  The  poor  drunkard  was  found  in  a  perfectly  helpless 
condition,  upon  the  chilly  ground.  Abraham's  companions 
urged  the  cowardly  policy  of  leaving  him  to  his  fate,  but  young 
Lincoln  would  not  hear  to  the  proposition.  At  his  request, 
the  miserable  sot  was  lifted  to  his  shoulders,  and  he  actually 
carried  him  eighty  rods  to  the  nearest  house.  Sending  word 
to  his  father  that  he  should  not  be  back  that  night,  with  the 
reason  for  his  absence,  he  attended  and  nursed  the  man  until 
the  morning,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  believing  that  he  had 
saved  his  life. 

That  Abraham  Lincoln  was  entirely  content  with  the  hum 
drum  life  he  was  living,  or  the  prospects  which  it  presented 
to  him,  is  not  probable.  He  had  caught  glimpses  of  a  life  of 
greater  dignity  and  significance.  Echoes  from  the  great 
centers  of  civilization  had  reached  his  ears.  When  he  was 
eighteen  years  old  he  conceived  the  project  of  building  a  little 
boat,  and  taking  the  produce  of  the  Lincoln  farm  down  the 
river  to  a  market.  He  had  learned  the  use  of  tools,  and  pos 
sessed  considerable  mechanical  talent,  as  will  appear  in  some 
other  acts  of  his  life.  Of  the  voyage  and  its  results  we  have 
no  knowledge,  but  an  incident  occurred  before  starting  which 
he  related  in  later  life  to  his  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Seward, 
that  made  a  very  marked  and  pleasant  impression  upon  his 
memory.  As  he  stood  at  the  landing,  a  steamer  approached, 
co.ning  down  the  river.  At  the  same  time  two  passengers 
came  to  the  river's  bank  who  wished  to  be  taken  out  to  the 
3 


34  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

packet  with  their  luggage.  Looking  among  the  boats  at  the 
landing,  they  singled  out  Abraham's,  and  asked  him  to  scull 
them  to  the  steamer.  This  he  did,  and  after  seeing  them  and 
their  trunks  on  board,  he  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  upon 
the  bottom  of  his  boat,  before  he  shoved  off,  a  silver  half  dol 
lar  from  each  of  his  passengers.  "  I  could  scarcely  believe 
my  eyes,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  telling  the  story.  "  You  may 
think  it  was  a  very  little  thing,"  continued  he,  "  but  it  was  a 
most  important  incident  in  my  life.  I  could  scarcely  believe 
that  I,  a  poor  boy,  had  earned  a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day. 
The  world  seemed  wider  and  fairer  before  me.  I  was  a  more 
hopeful  and  confident  being  from  that  time."  * 

A  little  incident  occurred  during  these  hard  years  in  Indiana 
which  illustrates  the  straits  to  which  the  settlers  were  subjected. 
At  one  time  Abraham  was  obliged  to  take  his  grist  upon  the 
back  of  his  father's  horse,  and  go  fifty  miles  to  get  it  ground. 
The  mill  itself  was  very  rude,  and  driven  by  horse-power. 
The  customers  were  obliged  to  wait  their  turn,  without  refer 
ence  to  their  distance  from  home,  and  then  use  their  own 
horses  to  propel  the  machinery.  On  one  occasion,  Abraham, 
having  arrived  at  his  turn,  fastened  his  mare  to  the  lever,  and 
was  following  her  closely  upon  her  rounds,  when,  urging  her 
with  a  switch,  and  "  clucking  "  to  her  in  the  usual  way,  he 
received  a  kick  from  her  which  prostrated  him,  and  made  him 
insensible.  With  the  first  instant  of  returning  consciousness, 
he  finished  the  cluck,  which  he  had  commenced  when  he  re 
ceived  the  kick,  (a  fact  for  the  psychologist)  and  with  the 
next  he  probably  thought  about  getting  home,  where  he  arrived 
at  last,  battered,  but  ready  for  further  service. 

At  the  age  of  nineteen,  Abraham  made  his  second  essay  in 
navigation,  and  this  time  caught  something  more  than  a  glimpse 
of  the  great  world  in  which  he  was  destined  to  play  so  import 
ant  a  part.  A  trading  neighbor  applied  to  him  to  take  charge 
of  a  flat-boat  and  its  cargo,  and,  in  company  with  his  own  son, 
to  take  it  to  the  sugar  plantations  near  New  Orleans.  The 
entire  business  of  the  trip  was  placed  in  Abraham's  hands. 
The  fact  tells  its  own  story  touching  the  young  man's  reputa- 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  35 

tion  for  capacity  and  integrity.  He  had  never  made  the  trip, 
knew  nothing  of  the  journey,  was  unaccustomed  to  business 
transactions,  had  never  been  much  upon  the  river;  but  his 
tact,  ability  and  honesty  were  so  far  trusted  that  the  trader 
was  willing  to  risk  his  cargo  and  his  son  in  his  care. 

The  delight  with  which  the  youth  swung  loose  from  the 
shore  upon  his  clumsy  craft,  with  the  prospect  of  a  ride  of 
eighteen  hundred  miles  before  him,  and  a  vision  of  the  great 
world  of  which  he  had  read  and  thought  so  much,  may  be 
imagined.  At  this  time,  he  had  become  a  very  tall  and  pow 
erful  young  man.  He  had  reached  the  remarkable  height  of 
six  feet  and  four  inches,  a  length  of  trunk  and  limb  remarkable 
even  among  the  tall  race  of  pioneers  to  which  he  belonged. 

The  incidents  of  a  trip  like  this  were  not  likely  to  be  ex 
citing,  but  there  were  many  social  chats  with  settlers  and 
hunters  along  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi,  and  there 
was  much  hailing  of  similar  craft  afloat.  Arriving  at  a  sugar 
plantation  somewhere  between  Natchez  and  New  Orleans,  the 
boat  was  pulled  in,  and  tied  to  the  shore  for  purposes  of  trade ; 
and  here  an  incident  occurred  which  was  sufficiently  exciting, 
and  one  which,  in  the  memory  of  recent  events,  reads  some 
what  strangely.  Here  seven  negroes  attacked  the  life  of  the 
future  liberator  of  their  race,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that 
some  of  them  have  lived  to  be  emancipated  by  his  proclamation. 
Night  had  fallen,  and  the  two  tired  voyagers  had  lain  down 
upon  their  hard  bed  for  sleep.  Hearing  a  noise  on  shore, 
Abraham  shouted :  "  Who  's  there?"  The  noise  continuing, 
and  no  voice  replying,  he  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  saw  seven 
negroes,  evidently  bent  on  plunder.  Abraham  guessed  the 
errand  at  once,  and  seizing  a  hand-spike,  rushed  toward  them, 
and  knocked  one  into  the  water  the  moment  that  he  touched 
the  boat.  The  second,  third  and  fourth  who  leaped  on  board 
were  served  in  the  same  rough  way.  Seeing  that  they  were 
not  likely  to  make  headway  in  their  thieving  enterprise,  the 
remainder  turned  to  flee.  Abraham  and  his  companion  grow 
ing  excited  and  warm  with  their  work,  leaped  on  shore,  and 
followed  them.  Both  were  too  swift  of  foot  for  the  negroes, 


36  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  all  of  them  received  a  severe  pounding.  They  returned 
to  their  boat  just  as  the  others  escaped  from  the  water,  but  the 
latter  fled  into  the  darkness  as -fast  as  their  feet  could  carry 
them.  Abraham  and  his  fellow  in  the  fight  were  both  injured, 
but  not  disabled.  Not  being  armed,  and  unwilling  to  wait  until 
the  negroes  had  received  reinforcements,  they  cut  adrift,  and 
floating  down  a  mile  or  two,  tied  up  to  the  bank  again,  and 
watched  and  waited  for  the  morning. 

The  trip  was  brought  at  length  to  a  successful  end.  The 
cargo,  or  "load,"  as  they  called  it,  was  all  disposed  of  for 
money,  the  boat  itself  sold  for  lumber,  and  the  young  men 
retraced  the  passage,  partly,  at  least,  on  shore  and  on  foot, 
occupying  several  weeks  in  the  difficult  and  tedious  journey. 

Working  thus  for  others,  receiving  only  the  humblest  wages 
in  return,  reading  every  book  upon  which  he  could  lay  his 
hand,  pursuing  various  studies  in  the  intervals  of  toil  with 
special  attention  to  arithmetic,  discharging  his  filial  duties  at 
home  and  upon  his  father's  farm,  picking  up  bits  of  informa 
tion  from  neighbors  and  new-comers,  growing  in  wisdom  and 
practical  sagacity,  and  achieving  a  place  in  the  good  will  and 
respect  of  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  the  thirteen 
years  of  his  life  in  Indiana  wore  away.  With  a  constitution 
as  firm  and  flexible  as  whip-cord,  he  had  arrived  at  his  majority. 
The  most  that  could  be  said  of  his  education  was  that  he  could 
"read,  write  and  cipher."  He  knew  nothing  of  English 
grammar.  He  could  not  read  a  sentence  in  any  tongue  but 
his  own ;  but  all  that  he  knew,  he  knew  thoroughly.  It  had 
all  been  assimilated,  and  was  a  part  not  only  of  his  inalienable 
possessions  but  of  himself.  While  acquiring,  he  had  learned 
to  construct,  organize,  express.  There  was  no  part  of  his 
knowledge  that  was  not  an  element  of  his  practical  power. 
He  had  not  been  made  by  any  artificial  process ;  he  had  grown. 
Holding  within  himself  the  germ  of  a  great  life,  he  had  reached 
out  his  roots  like  the  trees  among  which  he  was  reared,  and 
drawn  into  himself  such  nutriment  as  the  soil  afforded.  His 
individuality  was  developed  and  nurtured  by  the  process. 
He  had  become  a  man  after  God's  pattern,  and  not  a  machine 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  37 

after  man's  pattern ;  he  was  a  child  of  Nature  and  not  a  thing 
of  art.  And  this  was  the  secret  of  all  his  subsequent  intel 
lectual  successes.  He  succeeded  because  he  had  himself  and 
all  his  resources  completely  in  hand ;  for  he  was  not,  and 
never  became  an  educated  man,  in  the  common  meaning  of  that 
phrase.  He  could  train  all  his  force  upon  any  point,  and  it 
mattered  little  whether  the  direction  was  an  accustomed  one 
or  otherwise. 

It  was  a  happy  thing  for  the  young  man  that,  living  among 
the  roughest  of  rough  men,  many  of  whom  were  addicted  to 
coarse  vices,  he  never  acquired  a  vice.  There  was  no  taint 
upon  his  moral  ^character.  No  stimulant  ever  entered  his  lips, 
no.  profanity  ever  came  forth  from  them,  which  defiled  the 
man.  Loving  and  telling  a  story  better  than  any  one  around 
him,  except  his  father,  from  whom  he  inherited  the  taste  and 
talent,  a  great  talker  and  a  warm  lover  of  social  intercourse, 
good-natured  under  all  circumstances,  his  honesty  and  truth 
fulness  well  known  and  thoroughly  believed  in,  he  was  as 
popular  throughout  all  the  region  where  he  lived  as  he  became 
afterward  throughout  the  nation. 


CHAPTEE   III. 

THOMAS  LINCOLN  had  raised  his  litde  family ;  and  the 
children  of  his  wife  were  also  grown  to  woman's  and  man's 
estate.  There  had  indeed  been  three  weddings  in  the  family. 
Sarah  Lincoln,  the  daughter,  was  married  to  Aaron  Grigsby, 
a  young  man  living  in  the  vicinity,  and  two  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's 
daughters  had  left  the  Lincoln  cabin  for  new  homes.  The 
sister  of  Abraham  had  been  married  but  a  year,  however, 
when  she  died,  and  thus  a  new  grief  was  inflicted  upon  the 
sensitive  heart  of  her  brother.  Her  marriage  occurred  in 
1822  ;  and  as  she  was  born  in  1808,  she  could  have  been  only 
fourteen  years  old  when  she  became  a  wife.  It  is  not  remark 
able  that  the  child  found  an  early  grave. 

During  the  last  two  years  of  their  residence  in  Indiana,  a 
general  discontent  had  seized  upon  the  family  concerning  their 
location.  The  region  at  that  day  was  an  unhealthy  one,  and 
there  could  be  no  progress  in  agricultural  pursuits  without  a 
great  outlay  of  labor  in  clearing  away  the  heavy  timber  which 
burdened  all  the  fertile  soil.  At  the  same  time,  reports  were 
rife  of  the  superior  qualities  of  the  prairie  lands  of  Illinois. 
There,  by  the  sides  of  the  water-courses,  and  in  the  edges  of 
the  timber,  were  almost  illimitable  farms  that  called  for  nothing 
but  the  plough  and  hoe  to  make  them  immediately  productive. 
Dennis  Hanks,  a  relative  of  the  first  Mrs.  Lincoln,  was  sent 
to  the  new  region  to  reconnoiter,  and  returned  with  a  glowing 
account  of  the  new  country.  It  is  probable  that  if  Thomas 
Lincoln  had  been  alone  he  would  have  remained  at  the  old 


Engraved  rjcpressly for "Holland's  Life-  of  Lincoln 

TWIE    1A1LY  . 


IN    ILLINOIS 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  39 

home,  but  there  was  young  life  to  be  taken  into  the  account. 
The  new  sons-in-law  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  as  well  as  Abraham, 
were  doubtless  averse  to  repeating  the  severe  experiences  of 
the  father,  and  with  fresh  life  and  enterprise  desired  a  new  and 
more  inviting  field  of  operations. 

Mr.  Lincoln  sold  out  his  squatter's  claim  in  Indiana,  and,  on 
the  first  of  March,  1830,  less  than  a  month  after  Abraham  had 
completed  his  twenty-first  year,  he  started  for  the  land  of 
promise  in  company  with  his  family  and  the  sons-in-law  and 
two  daughters  of  his  wife.  Their  journey  was  difficult  and 
tedious  in  the  extreme.  They  found  the  rivers  swollen  by  the 
spring  rains,  and  through  such  mud  as  only  the  rich  soil  of 
the  West  can  produce,  the  ox-teams  dragged  the  wagons, 
loaded  with  the  entire  personal  effects  of  the  emigrants.  One 
of  these  teams  was  driven  by  Abraham.  Taking  a  north 
westerly  course,  they  struck  diagonally  across  the  southern 
part  of  Indiana,  making  toward  the  central  portion  of  Illinois. 
After  a  journey  of  two  hundred  miles,  which  they  made  in 
fifteen  days,  they  entered  Macon  County  in  that  state,  and 
there  halted.  The  elder  Lincoln  selected  a  spot  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Sangamon  River,  at  the  junction  of  the  timber  land 
and  prairie,  about  ten  miles  westerly  of  Decatur.  Here, 
Abraham  assisted  his  father  in  building  a  log  cabin,  and  in 
getting  the  family  into  a  condition  for  comfortable  life.  The 
cabin,  which  still  stands,  was  made  of  hewed  timber,  and 
near  it  were  built  a  smoke-house  and  stable.  All  the  tools 
they  had  to  work  with  were  a  common  ax,  a  broad  ax,  a  hand 
saw,  and  a  "  drawer  knife."  The  doors  and  floor  were  made 
of  puncheons,  and  the  gable  ends  of  the  structure  boarded  up 
with  plank  "  rived  "  by  Abraham's  hand  out  of  oak  timber. 
The  nails  used — and  they  were  very  few — were  all  brought 
from  their  old  home  in  Indiana.  When  the  cabin  and  out 
buildings  were  completed,  Abraham  set  to  work  and  helped 
to  split  rails  enough  to  fence  in  a  lot  of  ten  acres,  and  built 
the  fence.  After  breaking  up  the  piece  of  inclosed  prairie, 
and  seeing  it  planted  with  com,  he  turned  over  the  new  home 
to  his  father,  and  announced  his  intention  to  seek  or  make  his 


40  'LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

own  fortune.  He  did  not  leave  the  region  immediately,  how 
ever,  but  worked  for  hire  among  the  neighboring  farmers, 
picking  up  enough  to  keep  himself  clothed,  and  looking  for 
better  chances.  It  is  remembered  that  during  this  time  he 
broke  up  fifty  acres  of  prairie  with  four  yoke  of  oxen,  and 
that  he  spent  most  of  the  winter  following  in  splitting  rails 
and  chopping  wood.  No  one  seems  to  know  who  Mr.  Lincoln 
worked  for  during  this  first  summer,  but  a  little  incident  in  the 
pastoral  labors  of  Rev.  A.  Hale  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  will 
perhaps  indicate  his  employer.  There  seems  to  be  no  room 
for  the  incident  afterwards  in  his  life,  and  it  is  undoubtedly 
associated  with  his  first  summer  in  Illinois.  Mr.  Hale,  in  May, 
1861,  went  out  about  seven  miles  from  his  home  to  visit  a  sick 
lady,  and  found  there  a  Mrs.  Brown  who  had  come  in  as  a 
neighbor.  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  having  been  mentioned,  Mrs. 
Brown  said :  "  "Well,  I  remember  Mr.  Linken.  He  worked 
with  my  old  man  thirty-four  year  ago,  and  made  a  crap. 
"We  lived  on  the  same  farm  where  we  live  now,  and  he  worked 
all  the  season,  and  made  a  crap  of  corn,  and  the  next  winter 
they  hauled  the  crap  all  the  way  to  Galena,  and  sold  it  for 
two  dollars  and  a  half  a  bushel.  At  that  time  there  was  no 
public  houses,  and  travelers  were  obliged  to  stay  at  any  house 
alono;  the  road  that  could  take  them  in.  One  evening  a  ria'ht 

o  o  o 

smart  looking  man  rode  up  to  the  fence,  and  asked  my  old 
man  if  he  could  get  to  stay  over  night.  4  Well,'  said  Mr. 
Brown,  'we  can  feed  your  crittur,  and  give  you  something 
to  eat,  but  we  can  't  lodge  you  unless  you  can  sleep  on  the 
same  bed  with  the  hired  man.'  The  man  hesitated,  and 
asked  '  Where  is  he  ? '  4  Well,?  said  Mr.  Brown,  '  you  can 
come  and  see  him.'  So  the  man  got  down  from  his  crittur, 
and  Mr.  Brown  took  him  around  to  where,  in  the  shade  of 
the  house,  Mr.  Lincoln  lay  his  full  length  on  the  ground,  with 
an  open  book  before  him.  '  There,'  said  Mr.  Brown,  pointing 
at  him,  4  he  is.'  The  stranger  looked  at  him  a  minute,  and 
said,  *  Well,  I  think  he  '11  do,'  and  he  staid  and  slept  with  the 
President  of  the  United  States." 

There  are  some  mistakes  in  this  story.     Mr.  Lincoln  worked 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  41 

for  Mr.  Taylor,  who  owned  the  farm,  and  boarded  with  Mr. 
Brown.  There  is  an  evident  mistake  in  the  date  of  the 
incident,  for  it  puts  Mr.  Lincoln  into  Illinois  three  years  or 
more  before  he  removed  from  Indiana.  Of  the  fact  that  he 
worked  a  summer,  or  part  of  a  summer,  on  this  farm,  there  is 
no  doubt ;  and  it  is  strongly  probable  that  it  was  the  first  sum 
mer  he  spent  in  Illinois. 

The  expectation  of  the  family  to  find  a  more  healthy  location 
than  the  one  they  had  left  was  sadly  disappointed.  In  the 
autumn  of  that  year,  all  were  afflicted  with  fever  and  ague. 
This  was  a  new  enemy,  and  they  were  much  discouraged; 
but  no  steps  for  relief  or  removal  could  be  taken  then.  They 
determined,  however,  to  leave  the  county  at  the  first  oppor 
tunity.  In  the  meantime,  the  winter  descended,  and  it  proved 
to  be  the  severest  season  that  had  been  known  in  the  new 
state.  It  is  still  remembered  for  the  enormous  amount  of 
snow  that  fell.  In  the  following  spring,  the  father  left  the 
Sangamon  for  a  better  locality  in  Coles  County,  where  he 
lived  long  enough  to  see  his  son  one  of  the  foremost  men 

O  O 

of  the  new  state,  to  receive  from  him  many  testimonials  of 
filial  affection,  and  to  complete  his  seventy-third  year.  He 
died  on  the  17th  day  of  January,  1851. 

A  man  who  used  to  work  with  Abraham  occasionally  dur 
ing  his  first  year  in  Illinois,*  says  that  at  that  time  he  was  the 
roughest  looking  person  he  ever  saw.  He  was  tall,  angular 
and  ungainly,  and  wore  trousers  made  of  flax  and  tow,  cut 
tight  at  the  ankle,  and  out  at  both  knees.  He  was  known  to 
be  very  poor,  but  he  was  a  welcome 'guest  in  every  house  in 
the  neighborhood.  This  informant  speaks  of  splitting  rails 
with  Abraham,  and  reveals  some  interesting  facts  concerning 
wages.  Money  was  a  commodity  never  reckoned  upon. 
Abraham  split  rails  to  get  clothing,  and  he  made  a  bargain 
with  Mrs.  Nancy  Miller  to  split  four  hundred  rails  for  every 
yard  of  brown  jeans,  dyed  with  white  walnut  bark,  that  would 
be  necessary  to  make  him  a  pair  of  trousers.  In  these  days 
he  used  to  walk  five,  six  and  seven  miles  to  his  work. 
*  George  Cluse. 


42  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

He  left  home  before  his  father  removed  to  Coles  County, 
but  he  did  not  cut  entirely  loose  from  the  family  until  this 
removal.  Then  he  was  ready  for  any  opening  t$  business,  and 
it  soon  came.  During  the  winter  of  the  deep  snow,  one  Denton 
Offutt,  a  trader,  who  belonged  in  Lexington,  Kentucky,  ap 
plied  to  him,  John  D.  Johnston,  his  stepmother's  son,  and  John 
Hanks,  a  relative  of  his  own  mother,  to  take  a  flat-boat  to 
New  Orleans.  Abraham  had  already  made  the  trip,  and  was 
regarded  as  a  desirable  man  for  the  service.  A  bargain  was 
made,  and  the  three  men  agreed  to  join  Offutt  at  Springfield, 
the  present  capital  of  the  state,  as  soon  as  the  snow  should  be 
gone.  The  snow  melted  about  the  first  of  March,  but  the 
accumulation  had  been  so  great  that  the  low  country  was 
heavily  flooded.  Finding  they  could  not  make  the  journey 
on  foot,  they  purchased  a  large  canoe,  and  proceeded  along 
the  Sangamon  River  in  it.  They  found  Offutt  at  Springfield, 
but  learned  that  he  had  failed  to  buy  a  boat  at  Beardstown, 
as  he  had  expected.  As  all  were  disappointed,  they  finally 
settled  upon  an  arrangement  by  which  young  Lincoln,  Hanks 
and  Johnston  were  to  build  a  boat  on  Sangamon  River,  at 
Sangamon  town,  about  seven  miles  north-west  of  Springfield. 
For  this  work  they  were  to  receive  twelve  dollars  a  month 
each.  When  the  boat  was  finished,  (and  every  plank  of  it 
was  sawed  by  hand  with  a  whip-saw,)  it  was  launched  on  the 
Sangamon,  and  floated  to  a  point  below  New  Salem,  in  Menard 
(then  Sangamon)  County,  where  a  drove  of  hogs  was  to  be 
taken  on  board.  At  this  time,  the  hogs  of  the  region  ran 
wild,  as  they  do  now  in  portions  of  the  border  states.  Some 
of  them  were  savage,  and  all,  after  the  manner  of  swine, 
were  difficult  to  manage.  They  had,  however,  been  gathered 
and  penned,  but  not  *  an  inch  could  they  be  made  to  move 
toward  the  boat.  All  the  ordinary  resources  were  exhausted 
in  the  attempts  to  get  them  on  board.  There  was  but  one 
alternative,  and  this  Abraham  adopted.  He  actually  carried 
them  on  board,  one  by  one.  His  long  arms  and  great  strength 
enabled  him  to  grasp  them  as  in  a  vise,  and  to  transfer  themj 
rapidly  from  the  shore  to  the  boat.  They  then  took  the  boat 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  43 

to  New  Orleans  substantially  on  the  original  contract,  though 
Hanks,  finding  that  he  would  be  obliged  to  be  absent  from 
his  family  longer  than  he  expected,  left  the  boat  at  St.  Louis, 
and  came  back. 

The  voyage  was  successfully  accomplished,  and  so  great 
was  the  satisfaction  of  Lincoln's  employer,  that  he  immediately 
proposed  to  him  a  different  and  higher  grade  of  employment. 
OfFutt  had  a  store  at  New  Salem,  and  a  mill.  These  he  pro 
posed  to  place  in  Abraham's  care.  His  previous  clerks,  during 
his  long  absences,  had  not  only  cheated  him,  but,  by  their 
insolence  and  dissipated  habits,  had  driven  away  his  customers. 
OfFutt  met  Lincoln  on  the  previous  winter  an  entire  stranger, 
but,  during  a  brief  intercourse,  he  had  become  impressed  with 
his  capacity  and  honesty.  So  Abraham  became  a  clerk  in  a 
pioneer  "  store."  He  had  not  many  personal  graces  to  exhibit 
there,  but  he  at  once  became  a  center  of  attraction-  Offutt's 
old  customers  came  back,  new  ones  were  acquired,  and  all  the 
business  of  tli3  store  was  well  performed. 

It  was  while  performing  the  duties  of  this  new  position  that 
several  incidents  occurred  which  illustrated  the  young  man's 
characteristics.  He  could  not  rest  for  an  instant  under  the 
consciousness  that  he  had,  even  unwittingly,  defrauded  any 
body.  On  one  occasion  he  sold  a  woman  a  little  bill  of  goods 
amounting  in  value,  by  the  reckoning,  to  two  dollars  and  six 
and  a  quarter  cents.  He  received  the  money,  and  the  woman 
went  away.  On  adding  the  items  of  the  bill  again,  to  make 
himself  sure  of  correctness,  he  found  that  he  had  taken  six 
and  a  quarter  cents  too  much.  It  was  night,  and  closing  and 
locking  the  store,  he  started  out  on  foot,  a  distance  of  two  or 
three  miles,  for  the  house  of  his  defrauded  customer,  and 
delivering  over  to  her  the  sum  whose  possession  had  so  much 
troubled  him,  went  home  satisfied.  On  another  occasion,  just 
as  he  was  closing  the  store  for  the  night,  a  woman  entered, 
and  asked  for  half  a  pound  of  tea.  The  tea  was  weighed  out 
and  paid  for,  and  the  store  was  left  for  the  night.  The  next 
morning,  Abraham  entered  to  begin  the  duties  of  the  day, 
when  he  discovered  a  four-ounce  weight  on  the  scales.  He 


44  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

saw  at  once  that  lie  had  made  a  mistake,  and,  shutting  the 
store,  he  took  a  long  walk  before  breakfast  to  deliver  the 
remainder  of  the  tea.  These  are  very  humble  incidents,  but 
they  illustrate  the  man's  perfect  conscientiousness — his  sen 
sitive  honesty — better  perhaps  than  they  would  if  they  were 
of  greater  moment. 

Another  incident  occurred  in  this  store  which  illustrates 
other  traits  of  his  character.  While  showing  goods  to  two 
or  three  women,  a  bully  came  in  and  began  to  talk  in  an  offen 
sive  manner,  using  much  profanity,  and  evidently  wishing  to 
provoke  a  quarrel.  Lincoln  leaned  over  the  counter,  and 
begged  him,  as  ladies  were  present,  not  to  indulge  in  such 
talk.  The  bully  retorted  that  the  opportunity  had  come  for 
which  he  had  long  sought,  and  he  would  like  to  see  the  man 
who  could  hinder  him  from  saying  anything  he  might  choose 
to  say.  Lincoln,  still  cool,  told  him  that  if  he  would  wait 
until  the  ladies  retired,  he  would  hear  what  he  had  to  say, 
and  give  him  any  satisfaction  he  desired.  As  soon  as  the 
women  were  gone,  the  man  became  furious.  Lincoln  heard 
his  boasts  and  his  abuse  for  a  time,  and  finding  that  he  was 
not  to  be  put  off  without  a  fight,  said — "Well,  if  you  must  be 
whipped,  I  suppose  I  may  as  well  whip  you  as  any  other  man.'* 
This  was  just  what  the  bully  had  been  seeking,  he  said,  so 
out  of  doors  they  went,  and  Lincoln  made  short  work  with 
him.  He  threw  him  upon  the  ground,  held  him  there  as  if 
he  had  been  a  child,  and  gathering  some  "smart-weed"  which 
grew  upon  the  spot,  rubbed  it  into  his  face  and  eyes,  until  the 
fellow  bellowed  with  pain.  Lincoln  did  all  this  without  a 
particle  of  anger,  and  when  the  job  was  finished,  went  imme 
diately  for  water,  washed  his  victim's  face,  and  did  everything 
he  could  to  alleviate  his  distress.  The  upshot  of  the  matter 
was  that  the  man  became  his  fast  and  life-long  friend,  and  was 
a  better  man  from  that  day.  It  was  impossible  then,  and  it 
always  remained  impossible,  for  Lincoln  to  cherish  resentment 
or  revenge. 

There  lived  at  this  time,  in  and  around  New  Salem,  a  band 
of  rollicking  fellows  or,  more  properly,  roystering  rowdies, 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  45 

known  as  "  The  Clary's  Grove  Boys."  The  special  tie  that 
united  them  was  physical  courage  'and  prowess.  These  fel 
lows,  although  they  embraced  in  their  number  many  men  who 
have  since  become  respectable  and  influential,  were  wild  and 
rough  beyond  toleration  in  any  community  not  made  up  like 
that  which  produced  them.  They  pretended  to  be  "regula 
tors,"  and  were  the  terror  of  all  who  did  not  acknowledge 
their  rule ;  and  their  mode  of  securing  allegiance  was  by  flog 
ging  every  man  who  failed  to  acknowledge  it.  They  took 
it  upon  themselves  to  try  the  mettle  of  every  new  comer,  and 
to  learn  the  sort  of  stuff  he  was  made  of.  Some  one  of  their 
number  was  appointed  to  fight,  wrestle,  or  run  a  foot-race, 
with  each  incoming  stranger.  Of  course,  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  obliged  to  pass  the  ordeal. 

Perceiving  that  he  was  a  man  who  would  not  easily  be 
floored,  they  selected  their  champion,  Jack  Armstrong,  and 
imposed  upon  him  the  task  of  laying  Lincoln  upon  his  back. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  Lincoln  was  an  unwilling  party  in 
the  sport,  for  it  was  what  he  had  always  been  accustomed  to. 
The  bout  was  entered  upon,  but  Armstrong  soon  discovered 
that  he  had  met  with  more  than  his  match.  The  "  Boys  " 
were  looking  on,  and,  seeing  that  their  champion  was  likely 
to  get  the  worst  of  it,  did  after  the  manner  of  such  irrespon 
sible  bands.  They  gathered  around  Lincoln,  struck  and  dis 
abled  him,  and  then  Armstrong,  by  "legging"  him,  got  him 
down. 

Most  men  would  have  been  indignant,  not  to  say  furiously 
angry,  under  such  foul  treatment  as  this ;  but  if  Lincoln  was 
either,  he  did  not  show  it.  Getting  up  in  perfect  good  humor, 
he  fell  to  laughing  over  his  discomfiture,  and  joking  about  it. 
They  had  all  calculated  upon  making  him  angry,  and  then 
they  intended,  with  the  amiable  spirit  which  characterized  the 
"  Clary's  Grove  Boys,"  to  give  him  a  terrible  drubbing.  They 
were  disappointed,  and,  in  their  admiration  of  him,  immedi 
ately  invited  him  to  become  one  of  the  company.  Strange  as 
it  may  seem,  this  was  the  turning  point,  apparently,  in  Lin 
coln's  life,  a  fact  which  will  appear  as  our  narrative  progresses. 


46  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

It  was  while  young  Lincoln  was  engaged  in  the  duties  of 
Offutt's  store  that  he  commenced  the  study  of  English  gram 
mar.  There  was  not  a  text-book  to  be  obtained  in  the 
neighborhood,  but  hearing  that  there  was  a  copy  of  Kirkham's 
grammar  in  the  possession  of  a  person  seven  or  eight  miles 
distant,  he  walked  to  his  house  and  succeeded  in  borrowing  it, 
L.  M.  Green,  a  lawyer  of  Petersburg,  in  Menard  County, 
says  that  every  time  he  visited  New  Salem,  at  this  period, 
Lincoln  took  him  out  upon  a  hill,  and  asked  him  to  explain 
some  point  in  Kirkham  that  had  given  him  trouble.  After 
having  mastered  the  book,  he  remarked  to  a  friend,  that  if  that 
was  what  they  called  a  science,  he  thought  he  could  "  subdue 
another."  Mr.  Green  says  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  talk  at  this 
time  showed  that  he  was  beginning  to  think  of  a  great  life, 
and  a  great  destiny.  Lincoln  said  to  him,  on  one  occasion, 
that  all  his  family  seemed  to  have  good  sense,  but,  somehow, 
none  had  ever  become  distinguished.  He  thought  that  per 
haps  he  might  become  so.  He  had  talked,  he  said,  with  men 
who  had  the  reputation  of  being  great  men,  but  he  could  not 
see  that  they  differed  much  from  others.  During  this  year,  he 
was  also  much  engaged  with  debating  clubs,  often  walking 
six  or  seven  miles  to  attend  them.  One  of  these  clubs  held 
its  meetings  at  an  old  store-house  in  New  Salem,  and  the  first 
speech  young  Lincoln  ever  made  was  made  there.  He  used 
to  call  the  exercise  "  practicing  polemics."  As  these  clubs 
were  composed  principally  of  men  of  no  education  whatever, 
some  of  their  "  polemics  "  are  remembered  as  the  most  laugh 
able  of  farces.  His  favorite  newspaper,  at  this  time,  was  the 
Louisville  Journal,  a  paper  which  he  received  regularly  by 
mail,  and  paid  for  during  a  number  of  years  when  he  had  not 
money  enough  to  dress  decently.  He  liked  its  politics,  and 
was  particularly  delighted  with  its  wit  and  humor,  of  which 
he  had  the  keenest  appreciation.  When  out  of  the  store,  he 
was  always  busy  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  One  gentle 
man  who  met  him  during  this  period,  says  that  the  first  time 
he  saw  him  he  was  lying  on  a  trundle-bed,  covered  with  books 
and  papers,  and  rocking  a  cradle  with  his  foot.  Of  the 


LIFE    OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  47 

amount  of  uncovered  space  between  the  extremities  of  his 
trousers  and  the  top  of  his  socks  which  this  informant  ob 
served,  there  shall  be  no  mention.  The  whole  scene,  however, 
was  entirely  characteristic  —  Lincoln  reading  and  studying, 
and  at  the  same  time  helping  his  landlady  by  quieting  her 
child. 

During  the  year  that  Lincoln  was  in  Denton  Offutt's  store, 
that  gentleman,  whose  business  was  somewhat  widely  and 
unwisely  spread  about  the  country,  ceased  to  prosper  in  his 
finances,  and  finally  failed.  The  store  was  shut  up,  the  mill 
was  closed,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was  out  of  business.  The 
year  had  been  one  of  great  advances,  in  many  respects.  He 
had  made  new  and  valuable  acquaintances,  read  many  books, 
mastered  the  grammar  of  his  own  tongue,  won  multitudes  of 
friends,  and  become  ready  for  a  step  still  further  in  advance. 
Those  who  could  appreciate  brains  respected  him,  and  those 
whose  highest  ideas  of  a  man  related  to  his  muscles  were  de- 

O 

voted  to  him.  Every  one  trusted  him.  It  was  while  he  was 
performing  the  duties  of  the  store  that  he  acquired  the  sou 
briquet  "  Honest  Abe  "  —  a  characterization  that  he  never  dis 
honored,  and  an  abbreviation  that  he  never  outgrew.  He  was 
judge,  arbitrator,  referee,  umpire,  authority,  in  all  disputes, 
games  and  matches  of  man-flesh  and  horse-flesh  ;  a  pacificator 
in  all  quarrels;  every  body's  friend;  the  best  natured,  the 
most  sensible,  the  best  informed,  the  most  modest  and  unas 
suming,  the  kindest,  gentlest,  roughest,  strongest,  best  young 
fellow  in  all  New  Salem  and  the  region  round  about. 

&' 


•?. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DURING  the  year  that  Lincoln  was  in  the  employ  of  Offiitt, 
a  series  of  Indian  difficulties  were  in  progress  in  the  state. 
Black  Hawk,  a  celebrated  chief  of  the  Sacs,  a  tribe  that  by 
the  terms  of  a  treaty  entered  into  near  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  were  permanently  removed  to  the  western  bank  of 
the  Mississippi,  came  down  the  river  with  three  hundred  of 
his  own  warriors,  and  a  few  allies  from  the  Kickapoos  and 
Pottawatomies,  accompanied  also  by  his  women  and  children, 
and  crossed  to  the  eastern  side  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
taking  possession  of  the  old  hunting  grounds  of  the  nation  on 
the  Rock  River.  As  he  was  committing  numerous  outrages 
on  the  way,  General  Gaines,  commanding  the  United  States 
forces  in  that  quarter,  immediately  marched  a  few  companies 
of  regulars  to  Rock  Island,  where  he  took  up  his  position. 
Governor  Reynolds  seconded  his  efforts  by  sending  to  him 
several  hundred  volunteers,  recruited  in  the  northern  and  cen 
tral  portions  of  the  state.  Black  Hawk,  not  being  able  to 
meet  the  force  thus  assembled,  retreated,  and,  on  receiving 
from  General  Gaines  a  threat  to  cross  the  river  and  chastise 
him  on  his  own  ground,  sued  for  peace,  and  reaffirmed  all  the 
terms  of  the  old  treaty  which  confined  him  to  the  western 
shore  of  the  Mississippi. 

The  old  chief  proved  treacherous  again,  and  showed  in  the 
spring  of  1832  that  his  treaty  was  simply  an  expedient  for 
gaining  time,  and  raising  a  larger  force.  He  gathered  his 
warriors  in  large  numbers,  and  crossed  the  river  with  the 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  49 

intention,  as  he  openly  declared,  of  ascending  the  Rock  River 
to  the  territory  of  the  Winnebagoes,  among  whom  he  doubt 
less  hoped  to  receive  reinforcements.  Warned  back  by  Gen 
eral  Atkinson,  then  commanding  the  United  States  troops  on 
Rock  Island,  he  returned  a  defiant  message,  and  kept  on.  In 
this  threatening  aspect  of  affairs,  Governor  Reynolds  issued  a 
call  for  volunteers,  and  among  the  companies  that  immediately 
responded  was  one  from  Menard  County.  Many  of  the  vol 
unteers  were  from  New  Salem  and  Clary's  Grove,  and  Lincoln, 
being  out  of  business,  was  the  first  to  enlist.  The  company 
being  full,  they  held  a  meeting  at  Richland  for  the  election  of 
officers;  and  now  the  influence  of  the  Clary's  Grove  Boys 
was  felt.  Lincoln  had  completely  won  their  hearts,  and  they 
told  him  that  he  must  be  their  captain.  It  was  an  office  that 
he  did  not  aspire  to,  and  one  for  which  he  felt  that  he  had  no 
special  fitness ;  but  he  consented  to  be  a  candidate.  There 
was  but  one  other  candidate  for  the  office,  (a  Mr.  Kirkpat- 
rick,)  and  he  was  one  of  the  most  influential  men  in  the 
county.  Previously,  Kirkpatrick  had  been  an  employer  of 
Lincoln,  and  was  so  overbearing  in  his  treatment  of  the 
young  man  that  the  latter  left  him. 

The  simple  mode  of  electing  their  captain,  adopted  by  the 
company,  was  by  placing  the  candidates  apart,  and  telling  the 
men  to  go  and  stand  with  the  one  they  preferred.  Lincoln 
and  his  competitor  took  their  positions,  and  then  the  word 
was  given.  At  least  three  out  of  every  four  went  to  Lincoln 
at  once.  When  it  was  seen  by  those  who  had  ranged  them 
selves  with  the  other  candidate  that  Lincoln  was  the  choice 
of  the  majority  of  the  company,  they  left  their  places,  one  by 
one,  and  came  over  to  the  successful  side,  until  Lincoln's  op 
ponent  in  the  friendly  strife  was  left  standing  almost  alone. 
"I  felt  badly  to  see  him  cut  so,"  says  a  witness  of  the  scene. 
Here  was  an  opportunity  for  revenge.  The  humble  laborer 
was  his  employer's  captain,  but  the  opportunity  was  never 
improved.  Mr.  Lincoln  frequently  confessed  that  no  subse 
quent  success  of  his  life  had  given  him  half  the  satisfaction 
that  this  election  did.  He  had  achieved  public  recognition ; 
4 


50  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN". 

and  to  one  so  humbly  bred  the  distinction  was  inexpressibly 
delightful. 

Captain  Lincoln's  company  and  several  others  formed  in  the 
vicinity,  were  ordered  to  rendezvous  at  Beardstown,  on  the 
Illinois  River,  and  here  for  the  first  time  he  met  the  Hon. 
John  T.  Stuart,  a  gentleman  who  was  destined  to  have  an 
important  influence  upon  his  life.  Stuart  was  a  lawyer  by 
profession,  and  commanded  one  of  the  Sangamon  County  com 
panies.  Captain  Stuart  was  soon  afterwards  elected  Major 
of  a  spy  battalion,  formed  from  some  of  these  companies,  and 
had  the  best  opportunities  to  observe  the  merits  of  Captain 
Lincoln.  He  testifies  that  Lincoln  was  exceedingly  popular 
among  the  soldiers,  in  consequence  of  his  excellent  care  of 
the  men  in  his  command,  his  never-failing  good  nature,  and 
his  ability  to  tell  more  stories  and  better  ones  than  any  man 
in  the  service.  He  was  popular  also  among  these  hardy  men 
on  account  of  his  great  physical  strength.  Wrestling  was  an 
every-day  amusement,  in  which  athletic  game  Lincoln  had 
but  one  superior  in  the  army.  One  Thompson  was  Lincoln's 
superior  in  "science,"  and  vanquished  everybody  rather  by 
superior  skill  than  by  superior  muscular  power. 

On  the  27th  of  April,  the  force  at  Beardstown  moved.  A 
few  days  of  severe  marching  took  the  troops  to  the  mouth  of 
Rock  River.  It  was  there  arranged  with  General  Atkinson 
that  they  should  proceed  up  the  river  to  Prophetstown, 
where  they  were  to  await  the  arrival  of  the  regulars.  General 
Whiteside,  in  command  of  the  volunteers,  disregarding  the 
arrangement  for  some  reason,  burnt  the  Prophet's  village,  and 
advanced  up  the  stream  forty  miles  further,  to  Dixon's  Ferry. 
These  inarches  were  severe ;  but  to  men  bred  as  Captain  Lin 
coln  had  been,  they  were  but  the  repetition  of  every-day 
hardships,  under  more  exciting  motives. 

Before  arriving  at  Dixon's  Perry,  the  army  halted,  and 
leaving  behind  their  baggage-wagons,  made  a  forced  march 
upon  the  place.  Arriving  there,  scouting  parties  were  sent 
out  to  ascertain  the  position  of  the  enemy.  At  this  time  they 
were  joined  by  two  battalions  of  mounted  volunteers  from 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  51 

the  region  of  Peoria,  who,  having  a  taste  for  a  little  fighting 
on  their  own  responsibility,  had  rashly  engaged  Black  Hawk, 
and  had  been  chased  in  disorder  from  the  field  of  their  boyish 
adventure,  leaving  eleven  of  their  number  behind  them  dead, — 
an  event  which  has  passed  into  history  with  the  title  of  "Still- 
man's  Defeat."  They  came  to  General  Whiteside  panic- 
stricken,  and  a  council  of  war  was  immediately  held  which 
resulted  in  the  determination  to  march  at  once  to  the  scene 
of  the  disaster.  A  battle  seemed  imminent,  but  the  wily  sav 
ages  had  anticipated  the  movement,  and  not  one  was  found. 
They  had  pushed  further  up  the  river,  and  broken  up  into 
predatory  and  foraging  bands,  one  of  which  pounced  upon  a 
settlement  near  Ottowa,  murdered  fifteen  persons,  and  carried 
two  young  women  away  captive. 

General  Whiteside,  finding  the  enemy  escaped,  buried  the 
dead  of  the  day  before,  returned  to  camp,  and  \\ras  soon  joined 
by  General  Atkinson  with  his  troops  and  supplies.  The 
twenty-four  hundred  men  thus  brought  together  made  a  force 
sufficiently  large  to  annihilate  Black  Hawk's  army,  if  they 
could  have  brought  the  cunning  warrior  to  a  fight,  but  this 
was  impossible.  Here  a  new  trouble  arose.  The  troops  had 
volunteered  for  a  limited  period,  and,  as  their  time  had  nearly 
expired,  and  they  were  surfeited  with  hardship  without  glory, 
they  clamored  to  be  discharged,  and  Governor  Reynolds  yield 
ed  to  their  demands.  The  danger  still  continuing,  he  issued 
another  call  for  volunteers.  Captain  Lincoln  was  among  those 
who  had  not  had  enough  of  the  war.  He  had  volunteered 
for  a  purpose,  and  he  did  not  intend  to  leave  the  service  until 
the  purpose  was  accomplished.  The  Governor,  in  addition 
to  his  general  call  for  volunteers,  asked  for  the  formation  of  a 
volunteer  regiment  from  those  just  discharged.  General 
Whiteside  himself  immediately  re-enlisted  as  a  private,  as  did 
also  Captain  Lincoln.  Then  followed  a  whole  month  of  march 
ing  and  maneuvering,  without  satisfactory  results.  There  was 
some  fighting  near  Galena,  and  a  skirmish  at  Burr-Oak  Grove, 
but  there  was  not  enough  of  excitement  and  success  to  keep 
the  restless  spirits  of  the  volunteers  contented,  and  many  of 


52  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

them  deserted.  Indeed,  the  force  became  reduced  to  one-half 
of  its  original  numbers.  Lincoln,  however,  remained  true  to 
his  obligations,  although  it  was  not  his  good  fortune  to  par 
ticipate  in  the  engagements  which  brought  the  war  to  a  speedy 
close.  The  Indians  were  overtaken  at  last  by  a  force  under 
General  Henry.  The  pursuit  had  led  them  to  the  Wisconsin 
River,  and  here  the  Indians  were  found  in  full  retreat.  They 
were  charged  upon,  and  driven  in  great  confusion.  Sixty- 
eight  Indians  were  killed,  a  large  number  wounded,  and  at 
last,  just  as  the  savages  were  crossing  the  Mississippi,  the 
battle  of  Bad- Ax  wras  fought  which  resulted  in  the  capture 
of  Black  Hawk  himself,  with  nearly  all  his  warriors. 

The  Black  Hawk  war  was  not  a  very  remarkable  affair. 
It  made  no  military  reputations,  but  it  was  noteworthy  in  the 
single  fact  that  the  two  simplest,  homeliest  and  truest  men 
engaged  in  it  afterward  became  Presidents  of  the  United 
States,  viz:  General  (then  Colonel)  Zachary  Taylor,  and 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln  never  spoke  of  it  as  anything 
more  than  an  interesting  episode  in  his  life,  except  upon  one 
occasion  when  he  used  it  as  an  instrument  for  turning  the 
military  pretensions  of  another  into  ridicule.  The  friends  of 
General  Cass,  when  that  gentleman  was  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency,  endeavored  to  endow  him  with  a  military  reputa 
tion.  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  that  time  a  representative  in  Congress, 
delivered  a  speech  before  the  House,  which,  in  its  allusions  to 
General  Cass,  was  exquisitely  sarcastic  and  irresistibly  humor 
ous.  "  By  the  way,  Mr.  Speaker,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  do 
you  know  I  am  a  military  hero  ?  Yes,  sir,  in  the  days  of  the 
Black  Hawk  war,  I  fought,  bled  and  came  away.  Speaking 
of  General  Cass's  career  reminds  me  of  my  own.  I  was  not 
at  Stillman's  Defeat,  but  I  wras  about  as  near  it  as  Cass  to 
Hull's  surrender;  and  like  him  I  saw  the  place  very  soon 
afterward.  It  is  quite  certain  I  did  not  break  my  sword,  for 
I  had  none  to  break ;  but  I  bent  my  musket  pretty  badly  on 
one  occasion.  *  *  *  If  General  Cass  went  in  advance  of  me 
in  picking  whortleberries,  I  gu-ess  I  surpassed  him  in  charges 
upon  the  wild  onions.  If  he  saw  any  live,  fighting  Indians, 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  53 

it  was  more  than  I  did,  but  I  had  a  good  many  bloody  struggles 
with  the  mosquitoes ;  and  although  I  never  fainted  from  loss 
of  blood,  I  can  truly  say  I  was  often  very  hungry."  Mr. 
Lincoln  then  went  on  to  say  that  if  he  should  ever  turn  dem 
ocrat,  and  be  taken  up  as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  by 
the  democratic  party,  he  hoped  they  would  not  make  fun  of 
him  by  attempting  to  make  of  him  a  military  hero.  He  lived 
to  see  himself  the  candidate  of  another  party,  and  witnessed 
a  decided  disposition  on  the  part  of  his  campaign  biographers 
to  make  a  little  political  capital  for  him  out  of  his  connection 
with  the  Black  Hawk  war — an  attempt  which  must  have  ap 
pealed  to  his  quick  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  as  well  as  recalled 
the  speech  from  which  an  extract  has  been  quoted. 

The  soldiers  from  Sangamon  County  arrived  home  just  ten 
days  before  the  state  election,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  immedi 
ately  applied  to  for  permission  to  place  his  name  among  the 
candidates  for  the  legislature.  He  was  then  but  twenty-three 
years  old,  had  but  just  emerged  from  obscurity,  and  had  been 
but  a  short  time  a  resident  of  the  county.  The  application 
was  a  great  surprise  to  him.  Indeed,  aside  from  the  evidence 
of  personal  and  neighborhood  friendship  which  it  afforded  him, 
the  surprise  could  hardly  have  been  a  pleasant  one,  for  his 
political  convictions  had  placed  him  among  those  who  were  in 
almost  a  hopeless  minority.  Party  feeling  ran  high  between 
the  friends  of  General  Jackson  and  Henry  Clay,  but  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Clay  had  little  power.  Illinois  was  strongly 
democratic  and  for  many  years  remained  so.  His  opponents 
in  the  canvass  were  well  known  men,  and  had  shown  them 
selves  and  made  their  speeches  throughout  the  county;  yet 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  precinct  he  was  voted  for  alike  by  po 
litical  friend  and  foe.  The  official  vote  of  the  New  Salem 
precinct,  as  shown  by  the  poll-book  in  the  clerk's  office  at 
Springfield,  was,  at  this  time,  for  Congress  :  Jonathan  H. 
Pugh  179,  Joseph  Duncan  97  ;  while  the  vote  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  for  the  legislature  was  277,  or  one  more  than  the  ag 
gregate  for  both  the  candidates  for  Congress.  This  vote  was 
undoubtedly  the  result  of  the  personal  popularity  acquired  by 


54  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  during  his  brief  military  campaign.  All  his  soldiers 
voted  for  him,  and  worked  for  his  election  wherever  they  had 
influence.  But  he  was  defeated  on  the  general  vote,  and  im 
mediately  looked  about  to  find  what  there  was  for  him  to  do. 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  the  fact  that  at  this  time  he 
seriously  took  into  consideration  the  project  of  learning  the 
blacksmith's  trade.  He  was  without  means,  and  felt  the  im 
mediate  necessity  of  undertaking  some  business  that  would 
give  him  bread.  It  was  while  he  was  entertaining  this  project 
that  an  event  occurred  which,  in  his  undetermined  state  of 
mind,  seemed  to  open  a  way  to  success  in  another  quarter. 
A  man  named  Reuben  Radford,  the  keeper  of  a  small  store  in 
the  village  of  New  Salem,  had  somehow  incurred  the  dis 
pleasure  of  the  Clary's  Grove  Boys,  who  had  exercised  their 
"regulating"  prerogatives  by  irregularly  breaking  in  his 
windows.  William  G.  Greene,  a  friend  of  young  Lincoln, 
riding  by  Radford's  store  soon  afterward,  was  hailed  by  him, 
and  told  that  he  intended  to  sell  out.  Mr.  Greene  went  into 
the  store,  and,  looking  around,  offered  him  at  random  four 
hundred  dollars  for  his  stock.  The  offer  was  immediately 
accepted.  Lincoln  happening  in  the  next  day,  and  being 
familiar  with  the  value  of  the  goods,  Mr.  Greene  proposed  to 
him  to  take  an  inventory  of  the  stock,  and  see  what  sort  of  a 
bargain  he  had  made.  This  he  did,  and  it  was  found  that  the 
goods  were  worth  six  hundred  dollars.  Lincoln  then  made 
him  an  offer  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  for  his  bar 
gain,  with  the  proposition  that  he  and  a  man  named  Berry, 
as  his  partner,  should  take  his  (Greene's)  place  in  the  notes 
given  to  Radford.  Mr.  Greene  agreed  to  the  arrangement, 
but  Radford  declined  it,  except  on  condition  that  Greene 
would  be  their  security,  and  this  he  at  last  assented  to. 

Berry  proved  to  be  a  dissipated,  trifling  man,  and  the  busi 
ness  soon  became  a  wreck.  Mr.  Greene  was  obliged  to  go 
in  and  help  Lincoln  close  it  up,  and  not  only  do  this  but  pay 
Radford's  notes.  All  that  young  Lincoln  won  from  the  store 
was  some  very  valuable  experience,  and  the  burden  of  a  debt 
to  Greene  which,  in  his  conversations  with  the  latter,  he 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLX.  55 

always  spoke  of  as  "  the  national  debt."  But  this  national 
debt,  unlike  the  majority  of  those  which  bear  the  title,  was 
paid  to  the  utmost  farthing  in  after  years.  Six  years  after- 
Wards,  Mr.  Greene,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  law' in  such 
cases,  and  had  not  troubled  himself  to  inquire  about  it,  and 
who  had,  in  the  meantime,  removed  to  Tennessee,  received 
notice  from  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  was  ready  to  pay  him  what 
he  had  paid  for  Berry — he,  Lincoln,  being  legally  bound  to  pay 
the  liabilities  of  his  partner. 

About  this  time  Mr.  Lincoln  was  appointed  postmaster  by 
President  Jackson.  The  office  was  too  insignificant  to  be 
considered  politically,  and  it  was  given  to  the  young  man 
because  everybody  liked  him,  and  because  he  was  the  only  man 
willing  to  take  it  who  could  make  out  the  returns.  He  was 
exceedingly  pleased  with  the  appointment,  because  it  gave  him 
a  chance  to  read  every  newspaper  that  was  taken  in  the  vicin 
ity.  He  had  never  been  able  to  get  half  the  newspapers  he 
wanted  before,  and  the  office  gave  him  the  prospect  of  a  con 
stant  feast.  Not  wishing  to  be  tied  to  the  office,  as  it  yielded 
him  no  revenue  that  would  reward  him  for  the  confinement, 
he  made  a  post-office  of  his  hat.  Whenever  he  went  out, 
the  letters  were  placed  in  his  hat.  When  an  anxious  looker 
for  a  letter  found  the  postmaster,  he  had  found  his  office ; 
and  the  public  officer,  taking  off  his  hat,  looked  over  his  mail 
wherever  the  public  might  find  him.  He  kept  the  office 
until  it  was  discontinued,  or  removed  to  Petersburgh. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  exhibitions  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  rigid 
honesty  occurred  in  connection  with  the  settlement  of  his 
accounts  with  the  post-office  department,  several  years  after 
wards.  It  was  after  he  had  become  a  lawyer,  and  had  been 
a  legislator.  He  had  passed  through  a  period  of  great  poverty, 
had  acquired  his  education  in  the  law  in  the  midst  of  many 
perplexities,  inconveniences  and  hardships,  and  had  met  with 
temptations,  such  as  few  men  could  resist,  to  make  a  tempo 
rary  use  of  any  money  he  might  have  in  his  hands.  One  day, 
seated  in  the  law  office  of  his  partner,  the  agent  of  the  post- 
office  department  entered,  and  inquired  if  Abraham  Lincoln 


56  LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

was  within.  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  to  his  name,  and  was 
informed  that  the  agent  had  called  to  collect  a  balance  due 
the  department  since  the  discontinuance  of  the  New  Salem 
office.  A  shade  of  perplexity  passed  over  Mr.  Lincoln's  face, 
which  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  friends  who  were  present. 
One  of  them  said  at  once  :  "  Lincoln,  if  you  are  in  want  of 
money,  let  us  help  you."  He  made  no  reply,  but  suddenly 
rose,  and  pulled  out  from  a  pile  of  books  a  little  old  trunk, 
and,  returning  to  the  table,  asked  the  agent  how  much  the 
amount  of  his  debt  was.  The  sum  was  named,  and  then 
Mr.  Lincoln  opened  the  trunk,  pulled  out  a  little  package  of 
coin  wrapped  in  a  cotton  rag,  and  counted  out  the  exact  sum, 
amounting  to  something  more  than  seventeen  dollars.  After 
the  agent  had  left  the  room,  he  remarked  quietly  that  he  never 
used  any  man's  money  but  his  own.  Although  this  sum  had 
been  in  his  hands  during  all  these  years,  he  had  never  regarded 
it  as  available,  even  for  any  temporary  purpose  of  his  own. 

The  store  having  "  winked  out,"  to  use  his  own  expression, 
he  was  ready  for  something  else,  and  it  came  from  an  unex 
pected  quarter.  John  Calhoun,  a  resident  of  Springfield, 
and  since  notorious  as  President  of  the  Lecompton  Constitu 
tional  Convention,  in  Kansas,  was  the  surveyor  of  Sangamon 
County.  The  constant  influx  of  immigrants  made  his  office  a 
busy  one,  and,  looking  around  for  assistance,  he  fixed  upon 
Lincoln,  and  deputed  to  him  all  his  work  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  New  Salem.  Lincoln  had  not  the  slightest  knowl 
edge  of  surveying,  and  but  the  slenderest  acquaintance  with 
the  science  upon  which  it  was  based.  He  would  be  obliged  to 
fit  himself  for  his  work  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  and  he 
did.  Mr.  Calhoun  lent  him  a  copy  of  Flint  and  Gibson,  and 
after  a  brief  period  of  study,  he  procured  a  compass  and  chain 
(the  old  settlers  say  that  his  first  chain  was  a  grape-vine,)  and 
went  at  his  work.  The  work  procured  bread,  and,  what 
seemed  quite  as  essential  to  him,  books ;  for  during  all  these 
months  he  was  a  close  student,  and  a  constant  reader.  Mr. 
Lincoln  surveyed  the  present  town  of  Petersburgh,  and  much 
of  the  adjacent  territory.  He  pursued  this  business  steadily 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  57 

for  a  year  or  more,  and  with  such  success  that  the  accuracy 
of  his  surveys  has  never  been  called  in  question.  One  inter 
ruption  must  have  occurred  in  his  work,  though  it  was  brief. 
His  compass  and  chain  were  attached  and  sold  to  pay  a  debt 
of  Berry's,  for  which  he  was  surety,  but  they  were  bought 
by  a  man  named  James  Short,  who  immediately  gave  them 
back  to  him. 


CHAPTEE   V. 

HITHERTO  the  life  of  our  subject  has  run  in  a  single  stream. 
His  history  thus  far  has  related  to  his  private  career — to  his 
birth,  education,  growth  of  mind  and  character,  and  personal 
struggles.  Before  entering  upon  that  period  of  his  life 
through  which  we  are  to  trace  a  double  current,  a  private  and 
a  public  one,  it  will  be  proper  to  inquire  what  kind  of  a  man 
he  had  become. 

No  man  ever  lived,  probably,  who  was  more  a  self-made  man 
than  Abraham  Lincoln.  Not  a  circumstance  of  his  life 
favored  the  development  which  he  had  reached.  He  was 
self-moved  to  study  under  the  most  discouraging  conditions. 
He  had  few  teachers,  few  books,  and  no  intellectual  compan 
ions.  His  father  could  neither  read  nor  write.  His  mother 
died  when  he  was  a  child.  He  had  none  of  those  personal 
attractions  which  would  naturally  enlist  the  sympathies  and 
assistance  of  any  refined  men  and  women  with  whom  he  must 
occasionally  have  come  in  contact.  He  was  miserably  poor, 
and  was  compelled  to  labor  among  poor  people  to  win  his  daily 
bread.  There  was  not  an  influence  around  him  except  that 
left  upon  him  by  his  "  angel  mother,"  which  did  not  tend 
rather  to  drag  him  down  than  lift  him  up.  He  was  not  en 
dowed  with  a  hopeful  temperament.  He  had  no  force  of  self- 
esteem — no  faith  in  himself  that  buoyed  him  up  amid  the 
contempt  of  the  proud  and  prosperous.  He  was  altogether  a 
humble  man — humble  in  condition,  and  humble  in  spirit. 
Yet,  by  the  love  of  that  which  was  good  and  great  and  true, 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  59 

anil  by  the  hunger  anil  thirst  of  a  noble  nature,  he  was  led  to 
the  acquisition  of  a  practical  education,  and  to  the  develop- 
1  ment  of  all  those  peculiar  powers  that  were  latent  within  him. 
lie  was  loyal  to  his  convictions.  There  is  no  doubt  that  at 
this  time  he  had  begun  to  think  of  political  life.  He  was,  at 
least,  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  politics  of  his  own  state 
and  of  the  country.  There  was  not  a  more  diligent  reader  of 
political  newspapers  than  he.  He  had  become  familiar  with 
the  position  and  history  of  the  politicians  and  statesmen  of  the 
country,  and  must  have  been  entirely  aware  of  the  unpopularity 
of  tho^e  toward  whom  his  judgment  and  sympathies  led  him. 
That  he  was  then,  and  always  remained,  an  ambitious  man, 
there  is  no  question ;  and  with  this  fact  in  mind  we  can  measure 
the  sacrifice  which  adherence  to  his  convictions  cost  him.  His 
early  Jove  of  Henry  Clay  has  already  been  noticed ;  and  this 
love  for  the  great  Kentuckian,  though  circumstances  modified 
it  somewhat,  never  ceased.  He  clung  to  him  with  the  warmest 
affection  through  the  most  of  his  life,  pronounced  his  eulogy 
when  he  died,  and  stood  firmly  by  the  principles  which  he 
represented.  In  a  state  overwhelmingly  democratic,  he  took 
his  position  with  the  minority,  and  steadily  adhered  to  the 
opposition  against  all  the  temptations  to  quick  and  certain 
success  which  desertion  would  bring  him. 

O 

He  was  a  marked  and  peculiar  man.  People  talked  about 
him.  His  studious  habits,  his  greed  for  information,  his 
thorough  mastery  of  the  difficulties  of  every  new  position  in 
which  he  was  placed,  his  intelligence  touching  all  matters  of 
public  concern,  his  unwearying  good  nature,  his  skill  in  telling 
a  story,  his-  great  athletic  power,  his  quaint,  odd  ways,  his 
uncouth  nppearance,  all  tended  to  bring  him  into  sharp  con 
trast  with  the  dull  mediocrity  by  which  he  was  surrounded. 
Denton  Offutt,  his  old  employer  in  the  store,  said,  in  the  ex 
travagance  of  his  admiration,  that  he  knew  more  than  any 
other  mnn  in  the  United  States.  The  Governor  of  Indiana, 
one  of  OfFutt's  acquaintances,  said,  after  having  a  conversation 
with  Lincoln,  that  the  young  man  "  had  talent  enough  in  him 
to  make  -a  President."  In  every  circle  in  which  he  found 


60  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

himself,  whether  refined  or  coarse,  he  was  always  the  center 
of  attraction.  William  G.  Greene  says  that  when  he  (Greene) 
was  a  member  of  Illinois  college,  he  brought  home  with  him, 
on  a  vacation,  Richard  Yates,  the  present  Governor  of  the 
state,  and  some  other  boys,  and,  in  order  to  entertain  them, 
took  them  all  up  to  see  Lincoln.  He  found  him  in  his  usual 
position  and  at  his  usual  occupation.  He  was  flat  on  his  back, 
on  a  cellar  door,  reading  a  newspaper.  That  was  the  manner 
in  which  a  President  of  the  United  States  and  a  Governor  of 
Illinois  became  acquainted  with  one  another.  Mr.  Greene 
says  that  Lincoln  then  could  repeat  the  whole  of  Burns,  and 
was  a  devoted  student  of  Shakspeare.  So  the  rough  back 
woodsman,  self-educated,  entertained  the  college  boys,  and 
was  invited  to  dine  with  them  on  bread*  and  milk.  How  he 
managed  to  upset  his  bowl  of  milk  is  not  a  matter  of  history, 
but  the  fact  that  he  did  so  is,  as  is  the  further  fact  that  Greene's 
mother,  who  loved  Lincoln,  tried  to  smooth  over  the  accident, 
and  relieve  the  young  man's  embarrassment. 

Wherever  he  moved  he  found  men  and  women  to  respect 
and  love  him.  One  man  who  knew  him  at  that  time  says 
that  "Lincoln  had  nothing,  only  plenty  of  friends."  And 
these  friends  trusted  him  wholly,  and  were  willing  to  be  led 
by  him.  His  unanimous  election  as  Captain  in  the  Black 
Hawk  war,  and  the  unanimous  vote  given  him  for  the  legis 
lature  by  political  friend  and  foe,  wherever  in  the  county  he 
was  known,  illustrates  his  wonderful  popularity.  All  the 
circumstances  considered,  it  was  probably  without  a  precedent 
or  parallel.  When  we  remember  that  this  popularity  was 
achieved  without  any  direct  attempt  to  win  it — that  he  flat 
tered  nobody,  made  no  pretensions  whatever,  and  was  the 
plainest  and  poorest  man  in  his  precinct,  we  can  appreciate 
something  of  the  strength  of  his  character  and  the  beauty  and 
purity  of  his  life.  He  aroused  no  jealousies,  for  he  was  not 
selfish.  He  made  no  enemies,  because  he  felt  kindly  toward 
every  man.  People  were  glad  to  see  him  rise,  because  it 
seemed  just  that  he  should  rise.  Indeed,  all  seemed  glad  to 
help  him  along. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  61 

He  was  a  man  of  practical  expedients.  He  always  found 
some  way  to  get  out  of  difficulties,  whether  moral  or  mechan 
ical,  and  was  equally  ingenious  in  his  expedients  for  escaping 
or  surmounting  each  variety.  Governor  Yates,  in  a  speech 
at  Springfield,  before  a  meeting  at  which  William  G.  Greene 
presided,  quoted  Mr.  Greene  as  having  said  that  the  first  time 
he  ever  saw  Lincoln  he  was  "in  the  Sangamon  River,  with 
his  trousers  rolled  up  five  feet  more  or  less,  trying  to  pilot  a 
flat-boat  over  a  mill-dam.  The  boat  was  so  full  of  water  that 
it  was  hard  to  manage.  Lincoln  got  the  prow  over,  and  then, 
instead  of  waiting  to  bail  the  water  out,  bored  a  hole  through 
the  projecting  part,  ,and  let  it  run  out."  Barring  a  little 
western  extravagance  in  the  statement  of  a  measurement, 
the  incident  is  truly  recorded ;  and  it  illustrates  more  forcibly 
than  words  can  describe  the  man's  ingenuity  in  the  quick  in 
vention  of  moral  expedients,  then  and  afterwards.  His  life 
had  been  a  life  of  expedients.  He  had  always  been  engaged 
in  making  the  best  of  bad  conditions  and  untoward  circum 
stances,  and  in  meeting  and  mastering  emergencies.  Among 
those  who  did  not  understand  him,  he  had  the  credit  or  the 
discredit,  of  being  a  cunning  man  ;  but  cunning  was  not  at  all 
an  element  of  his  nature  or  character.  He  was  simply  in 
genious;  he  was  wonderfully  ingenious;  but  he  wras  not 
cunning.  Cunning  is,  or  tries  to  be,  far-sighted;  ingenuity 
disposes  of  occasions.  Cunning  contrives  plots;  ingenuity 
dissolves  them.  Cunning  sets  traps ;  ingenuity  evades  them. 
Cunning  envelops  its  victims  in  difficulties;  ingenuity  helps 
them  out  of  them.  Cunning  is  the  offspring  of  selfishness; 
ingenuity  is  the  child  or  companion  of  practical  wisdom.  He 
took  his  boat  safely  over  a  great  many  mill-dams  during  his 
life,  but  always  by  an  expedient. 

He  was  a  religious  man.  The  fact  may  be  stated  without 
any  reservation — with  only  an  explanation.  He  believed  in 
God,  and  in  his  personal  supervision  of  the  affairs  of  men. 
He  believed  himself  to  -be  under  his  control  and  guidance. 
He  believed  in  the  power  and  ultimate  triumph  of  the  right, 
through  his  belief  in  God.  This  unwavering  faith  in  a  Divine 


62  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Providence  began  at  his  mother's  knee,  and  ran  like  a  thread 
of  gold  through  all  the  inner  experiences  of  his  life.  His 
constant  sense  of  human  duty  was  one  of  the  forms  by  which 
his  faith  manifested  itself.  His  conscience  took  a  broader 
grasp  than  the  simple  apprehension  of  right  and  wrong.  He 
recognized  an  immediate  relation  between  God  and  himself,  in 
all  the  actions  and  passions  of  his  life.  He  was  not  pro 
fessedly  a  Christian — -that  is,  he  subscribed  to  no  creed, — 
joined  no  organization  of  Christian  disciples.  He  spoke  little 
then,  perhaps  less  than  he  did  afterward,  and  always  sparingly, 
of  his  religious  belief  and  experiences;  but  that  he  had  a 
deep  religious  life,  sometimes  imbued  with  superstition,  there 
is  no  doubt.  We  guess  at  a  mountain  of  marble  by  the  out 
cropping  ledges  that  hide  their  whiteness  among  the  ferns. 

At  this  period  of  his  life  he  had  not  exhibited  in  any  form 
that  has  been  preserved,  those  logical  and  reasoning  powers 
that  so  greatly  distinguished  him  during  his  subsequent  public 
career.  The  little  clubs  at  and  around  New  Salem  where  he 
"practiced  polemics"  kept  no  records,  and  have  published  no 
reports.  The  long  talks  in  Offutt's  store,  on  the  flat-boat,  on 
the  farm  and  by  the  cabin  fireside  have  not  been  preserved; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  germ  of  the  power  was  within 
him,  and  that  the  peculiarity  of  his  education  developed  it 
into  the  remarkable  and  unique  faculty  which  did  much  to 
distinguish  him  among  the  men  of  his  generation.  He  had 
been  from  a  child,  in  the  habit  of  putting  his  thoughts  into 
language.  He  wrote  much,  and  to  this  fact  is  doubtless  owing 
his  clearness  in  statement.  He  could  state  with  great  exact 
ness  any  fact  within  the  range  of  his  knowledge.  His  knowl 
edge  was  not  great,  nor  his  vocabulary  rich,  but  he  could  state 
the  details  of  one  by  the  use  of  the  other  with  a  precision  that 
Daniel  \Yebster  never  surpassed. 

He  was  a  childlike  man.  No  public  man  of  modern  days 
has  been  fortunate  enough  to  carry  into  his  manhood  so  much 
of  the  directness,  truthfulness  and  simplicity  of  childhood  as 
distinguished  him.  He  was  exactly  what  he  seemed.  He 
was  not  awkward  for  a  purpose,  but  because  he  could  not  help 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  63 

it.  He  did  not  dress  shabbily  to  win  votes,  or  excite  comment, 
but  partly  because  he  was  too  poor  to  dress  well,  and  partly 
because  he  had  no  love  for  dress,  or  taste  in  its  arrangement. 
He  was  not  honest  because  he  thought  honesty  was  "the  best 
policy,"  but  because  honesty  was  with  him  "the  natural  way 
of  living."  With  a  modest  estimate  of  his  own  powers,  and 
a  still  humbler  one  of  his  acquisitions,  he  never  assumed  to  be 
more  or  other  than  he  was.  A  lie  in  any  form  seemed  impos 
sible  to  him.  He  could  neither  speak  one  nor  act  one,  and  in 
the  light  of  this  fact  all  the  words  and  acts  of  his  life  are  to 
be  judged. 

If  this  brief  statement  of  his  qualities  and  powers  represents 
a  wonderfully  perfect  character — so  strangely  pure  and  noble 
that  it  seems  like  the  sketch  of  an  enthusiast,  it  is  not  the 
writer's  fault.  Its  materials  are  drawn  from  the  lips  of  old 
friends  who  speak  of  him  with  tears — who  loved  him  then  as 
if  he  were  their  brother,  and  who  worship  his  memory  with 
a  fond  idolatry.  It  is  drawn  from  such  humble  materials  as 
composed  his  early  history.  He  loved  all,  was  kind  to  all, 
was  without  a  vice  of  appetite  or  passion,  was  honest,  was 
truthful,  was  simple,  was  unselfish,  was  religious,  was  intelli 
gent  and  self-helpful,  was  all  that  a  good  man  could  desire  in 
a  son  ready  to  enter  life.  TVe  shall  see  how  such  a  man 
with  such  a  character  entered  life,  and  passed  through  it. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

SEVERAL  of  the  old  acquaintances  of  Mr.  Lincoln  speak  of 
his  having  studied  law,  or  having  begun  the  study  of  law, 
previous  to  1834.  He  had  doubtless  thought  of  it,  and  had 
made  it  a  subject  of  consideration  among  his  friends.  With 
a  vague  project  of  doing  this  at  some  time,  he  had  bought  a 
copy  of  Blackstone  at  an  auction  in  Springfield,  and  had 
looked  it  over.  This  fact  was  enough  to  furnish  a  basis  for 
the  story;  but  by  his  own  statement  he  did  not  begin  the 
study  of  his  profession  until  after  he  had  been  a  member  of 
the  legislature. 

Two  years  had  passed  away  since  his  unsuccessful  attempt 
to  be  elected  a  representative  of  Sangamon  County.  In  the 
meantime,  he  had  become  known  more  widely.  His  duties  as 
surveyor  had  brought  him  into  contact  with  people  in  other 
localities.  He  had  become  a  political  speaker,  and,  although 
rather  rough  and  slow  and  argumentative,  was  very  popular, 
He  had  made  a  few  speeches  on  the  condition  that  the  friends 
who  persuaded  him  to  try  the  experiment  "  would  not  laugh 
at  him."  They  agreed  to  the  condition,  and  found  no  occa 
sion  to  depart  from  it. 

In  1834,  he  became  again  a  candidate  for  the  legislature, 
and  was  elected  by  the  highest  vote  cast  for  any  candidate. 
Major  John  T.  Stuart,  whose  name  has  been  mentioned  as  an 
officer  in  the  Black  Hawk  war,  and  whose  acquaintance  Lin 
coln  made  at  Beardstown,  was  also  elected.  Major  Stuart 
had  already  conceived  the  highest  opinion  of  the  young  man, 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  65 

and  seeing  much  of  him  during  the  canvass  for  the  election, 
privately  advised  him  to  study  law.  Stuart  was  himself  en* 
gaged  in  a  large  and  lucrative  legal  practice  at  Springfield. 
Lincoln  said  he  was  poor — that  he  had  no  money  to  buy  books, 
or  to  live  where  books  might  be  borrowed  and  used.  Major 
Stuart  offered  to  lend  him  all  he  needed,  and  he  decided  to 
take  the  kind  lawyer's  advice,  and  accept  his  offer.  At  the 
close  of  the  canvass  which  resulted  in  his  election,  he  walked 
to  Springfield,  borrowed  "  a  load  "  of  books  of  Stuart,  and 
took  them  home  with  him  to  New  Salem.  Here  he  began 
the  study  of  law  in  good  earnest,  though  with  no  preceptor. 
He  studied  while  he  had  bread,  and  then  started  out  on  a 
surveying  tour,  to  win  the  money  that  would  buy  more.  One 
who  remembers  his  habits  during  this  period  says  that  he 
went,  day  after  day,  for  weeks,  and  sat  under  an  oak  tree  on 
a  hill  near  New  Salem  and  read,  moving  around  to  keep  in 
the  shade,  as  the  sun  moved.  He  was  so  much  absorbed  that 
some  people  thought  and  said  that  he  was  crazy.  Not  unfre- 
quently  he  met  and  passed  his  best  friends  without  noticing 
them.  The  truth  was  that  he  had  found  the  pursuit  of  his 
life,  and  had  become  very  much  in  earnest. 

During  Lincoln's  campaign,  he  possessed  and  rode  a  horse, 
to  procure  which  he  had  quite  likely  sold  his  compass  and 
chain,  for,  as  soon  as  the  canvass  had  closed,  he  sold  a  horse, 
and  bought  these  instruments  indispensable  to  him  in  the  only 
pursuit  by  which  he  could  make  his  living.  "When  the  time 
for  the  assembling  of  the  legislature  approached,  Lincoln 
dropped  his  law  books,  shouldered  his  pack,  and,  on  foot, 
trudged  to  Vandalia,  then  the  capital  of  the  state,  about  a 
hundred  miles,  to  make  his  entrance  into  public  life. 

His  personal  appearance  at  this  time  must  have  been  some 
thing  of  an  improvement  upon  former  days.  A  gentleman 
now  living  in  Chicago,  then  a  resident  of  Coles  County,*  met 
him  at  that  time,  or  very  soon  afterwards,  and  says  that  he 
was  dressed  in  plain  mixed  jeans,  his  coat  being  of  the  surtout 
fashion,  which,  at  that  day,  and  in  that  part  of  the  country, 

*U.  F.  hinder,  Esq. 
5 


66  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

was  a  very  reputable  dress.  He  speaks  of  him,  also,  as  being 
then  extremely  modest  and  retiring.  Colonel  Jesse  K.  Dubois, 
(one  of  the  Sangamon  County  delegation,)  and  Lincoln  were 
the  two  youngest  men  in  the  House.  During  this  session, 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  very  little,  but  learned  much.  As  he  was 
a  novice  in  legislation,  he  left  the  talking  to  older  and  wiser 
men.  James  Semple,  afterwards  United  States  Senator,  was 
qlected  speaker,  and  by  him  Lincoln  was  assigned  to  the  second 
.place  on  the  committee  on  public  accounts  and  expenditures. 
The  subject  of  controlling  interest  before  the  legislature  has 
uo  special  interest  in  connection  with  Mr.  Lincoln's  life.  The 
State  was  new,  and  very  imperfectly  developed.  A  plan  of 
internal  improvements  was  in  agitation,  special  reference  being 
had  to  a  loan  for  the  benefit  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal 
Company,  which  had  been  incorporated  in  1825.  The  loan 
bill  was  not  carried  at  this  session,  though  it  was  at  a  subse* 
quent  one.  Lincoln  was  constantly  in  his  place,  and  faithful 
in  the  performance  of  all  the  duties  that  were  devolved  upon 
him.  When  the  session  closed,  he  walked  home  as  he  came, 
and  resumed  his  law  and  his.  surveying. 

The  canvass  of  1836,  which  resulted  in  his  re-election  tt> 
the  legislature,  was  an  unusually  exciting  one,  and  resulted  in 
the  choice  of  a  House  which  has  probably  never  been  equaled 
In  any  state,  in  the  whole  history  of  the  country,  for  its  num 
ber  of  remarkable  men.  As  early  as  June  13th,  of  that 
year,  we  find  a  letter  in  the  Sangamon  Journal,  addressed  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  editor,  beginning  as  follows:  "In  your 
paper  of  last  Saturday,  I  see  a  communication  over  the  signa 
ture  of  'Many  Voters,'  in  which  the  candidates  who  are 
announced  in  the  Journal,  are  called  upon  to  'show  their 
hands.'  Agreed.  Here  's  mine."  He  then  goes  on  in  his 

O  O 

characteristic  way  to  "  show  his  hand,"  which  was  that  sub* 
stantially  of  the  new  whig  party.  It  was  during  tliis  canvass 
that  he  made  the  most  striking  speech  he  had  ever  tittered, 
and  one  that  established  his  reputation  as  a  first-class  political 
debater.  It  has  been  spoken  of,  by  some  writers,  as  the  first 
speech  he  ever  made ;  but  this  is  a  mistake.  The  opposing 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  67 

candidates  had  met  at  Springfield,  as  is  the  custom  in  the 
western  states,  for  a  public  discussion  of  the  questions 
involved  in  the  canvass ;  and  a  large  number  of  citizens  had 
gathered  in  the  Court  House  to  hear  the  speeches.  Ninian 
W.  Edwards,  then  a  whig,  led  off,  and  was  followed  by  Dr. 
Early,  a  sharp  debater  and  a  representative  man  among  the 
democrats.  Early  bore  down  very  heavily  upon  Edwards — 
so  much  so  that  the  latter  wanted  the  opportunity  for  an  im 
mediate  rejoinder,  but  Lincoln  took  his  turn  upon  the  platform. 
Embarrassed  at  first,  and  speaking  slowly,  he  began  to  lay 
down  and  fix  his  propositions.  His  auditors  followed  him 
with  breathless  attention,  and  saw  him  inclose  his  adversary 
in  a  wall  of  fact,  and  then  weave  over  him  a  network  of  de 
ductions  so  logically  tight  in  all  its  meshes,  that  there  was  no 
escape  for  the  victim.  He  forgot  himself  entirely,  as  he  grew 
warm  at  his  work.  His  audience  applauded,  and  with  rid 
icule  and  wit  he  riddled  the  man  whom  he  had  made  helpless. 
Men  who  remember  the  speech  allude  particularly  to  the 
transformation  which  it  wrought  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  appearance. 
The  homely  man  was  majestic,  the  plain,  good-natured  face 
was  full  of  expression,  the  long,  bent  figure  was  straight  as 
an  arrow,  and  the  kind  and  dreamy  eyes  flashed  with  the  fire 
of  true  inspiration.  His  reputation  was  made,  and  from  that 
day  to  the  day  of  his  death,  he  was  recognized  in  Illinois  as 
one  of  the  most  powerful  orators  in  the  state. 

The  Sangamon  County  delegation,  consisting  of  nine  rep 
resentatives,  was  so  remarkable  for  the  physical  altitude  of  its 
members  that  they  were  known  as  "The  Long  Nine."  Not  a 
man  of  the  number  was  less  than  six  feet  high,  and  Lincoln 
was  the  tallest  of  the  nine,  as  he  was  the  leading  man  intel 
lectually,  in  and  out  of  the  House.  Among  those  who  com 
posed  the  House,  were  General  John  A.  McClernand,  after 
wards  a  member  of  Congress,  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  afterwards 
auditor  of  the  state ;  James  Semple,  the  speaker  of  this  and 
the  previous  House,  and  subsequently  LTnited  States  Senator ; 
Robert  Smith,  afterwards  member  of  Congress ;  John  Hogan, 
at  present  a  member  of  Congress  from  St.  Louis;  General 


68  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

James  Shields,  afterwards  United  States  Senator;  John  De 
ment,  who  has  since  been  treasurer  of  the  state ;  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  whose  subsequent  public  career  is  familiar  to  all; 
Newton  Cloud,  president  of  the  convention  which  framed  the 
present  state  constitution  of  Illinois ;  John  J.  Hardin,  who  fell 
at  Buena  Vista;  John  Moore,  afterwards  Lieutenant  Gov 
ernor  of  the  state;  William  A.  Richardson,  subsequently 
United  States  Senator,  and  William  McMurtny,  who  has 
since  been  Lieutenant  Governor  of  the  state.  This  list  does 
not  embrace  all  who  had  then,  or  who  have  since  been  distin 
guished,  but  it  is  large  enough  to  show  that  Lincoln  was, 
during  the  term  of  this  legislature,  thrown  into  association 
and  often  into  antagonism  with  the  brightest  men  of  the  new 
state.  It  is  enough,  with  this  fact  in  mind,  to  say  that  he  was 
by  them  and  by  the  people  regarded  as  one  of  the  leading  men 
in  the  House. 

The  principal  measure  with  this  legislature  was  the  adoption 
of  a  general  system  of  public  improvements.  It  was  a  great 
object  with  the  special  friends  of  this  measure  to  secure  the 
co-operation  and  support  of  the  two  senators  and  nine  repre 
sentatives  from  Sangamon  County,  but  they  firmly  refused  to 
support  the  measure,  unless  the  removal  of  the  capital  from 
Vandalia  to  Springfield  was  made  a  part  of  the  proposed  sys 
tem.  So  the  measure  for  this  removal  passed  through  its 
various  stages  in  company  with  the  internal  improvement  bill, 
and  both  were  enacted  on  the  same  day.  The  measure  which 
thus  changed  the  location  of  the  capital  of  the  state  to  Spring 
field,  brought  great  popularity  to  the  members  from  Sangamon, 
at  least  in  their  own  home,  and  especially  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
was  put  forward  on  all  occasions  to  do  the  important  work  in 
securing  it.  When  it  is  remembered  that  he  had  achieved  his 
position  before  the  people  and  among  the  leading  men  of  the 
state  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-seven,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  disadvantages  under  which  he  had  labored  had  not 
hindered  him  from  doing  what  the  best  educated  and  most 

O 

favored  would  have  been  proud  to  do. 

It  was  at  this  session  that  Mr.  Lincoln  met  Stephen  A. 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  69 

Douglas  for  the  first  time.  Mr.  Douglas  was  then  only 
twenty-three  years  old,  and  was  the  youngest  man  in  the 
House.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  speaking  of  the  fact  subsequently, 
said  that  Douglas  was  then  "the  least  man  he  ever  saw." 
He  was  not  only  very  short  but  very  slender.  The  two 
young  men,  who  commenced  their  intellectual  and  political 
sparring  during  the  session,  could  hardly  have  foreseen  the 
struggle  in  which  they  were  to  engage  in  after  years — a 
struggle  which  foreshadowed  and  even  laid  the  basis  of  an 
epoch  in  the  national  history,  and  in  the  history  of  freedom 
and  progress  throughout  the  world. 

This  session  of  the  legislature  was  notable  for  its  connec 
tion  with  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  anti-slavery  history. 
It  was  at  Vandalia,  at  this  time,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
'Douglas  marked  out  the  course  in  which  they  were  to  walk — 
one  to  disappointment  and  a  grave  of  unsatisfied  hopes  and 
baffled  ambitions,  the  other  to  the  realization  of  his  highest 
dreams  of  achievement  and  renown,  and  a  martyrdom  that 
crowns  his  memory  with  an  undying  glory. 

Illinois  contained  many  immigrants  from  the  border  slave 
states.  Its  territory  was  joined  to  two  of  them ;  and  there 
was  a  strong  desire  to  live  in  harmony  with  neighbors  quick 
to  anger  and  resentment,  and  sensitive  touching  their  "pecu 
liar  institution."  The  prevailing  sentiment  in  the  state  was 
in  favor  of  slavery,  or  in  favor  of  slaveholders  in  the  exercise 
of  their  legal  and  constitutional  rights.  There  were,  in  fact, 
a  few  hundred  slaves  living  in  the  state  at  that  time,  as  appears 
by  the  census  tables,  but  by  what  law  is  not  apparent.  The 
democratic  party  was  unanimously  pro-slavery,  and  whatever 
there  may  have  been  of  anti-slavery  sentiment  among  the  whigs 
was  practically  of  little  account.  The  abolitionist  was  hated 
and  despised  by  both  parties  alike,  and  the  whigs  deprecated 
and  disowned  the  title  with  indignation.  There  was  doubtless 
some  anti-slavery  sentiment  among  the  whigs,  but  it  was 
weak  and  timid.  Both  parties  were  strong  in  their  professed 
regard  for  the  Constitution,  and  neither  party  doubted  that  the 
Constitution  protected  the  institution  of  American  Slavery. 


70  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  agitation  of  the  slavery  question  was  just  beginning  to 
create  uneasiness  among  slaveholders  and  politicians ;  and  dur 
ing  the  winter  the  subject  was  broached  in  the  legislature. 
Resolutions  were  introduced  of  an  extreme  pro-slavery  char 
acter,  and  the  attempt  was  made  to  fix  the  stigma  of  aboli 
tionism  upon  all  who  did  not  indorse  them.  They  were  carried 
through  by  the  large  democratic  majority,  and  the  opposition 
to  them  was  weak  in  numbers  and  weaker  still  in  its  positions. 
We  can  judge  something  of  its  weakness  when  we  learn  that 
only  two  men  among  all  the  whig  members  were  found  willing 
to  subscribe  to  a  protest  against  these  resolutions.  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  Dan  Stone,  "  representatives  from  the  County  of 
Sangamon,"  entered  upon  the  Journal  of  the  House  their 
reasons  for  refusing  to  vote  for  these  offensive  resolutions,  and 
they  were  the  only  men  in  the  state  who  had  the  manliness  to 
do  it.  The  points  of  the  protest  were  these  :  that  while  "  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  has  no  power  under  the  Con 
stitution  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the 
different  states,"  and  that  while  "  the  promulgation  of  abolition 
doctrines  tends  rather  to  increase  than  abate  its  evils,"  still,  the 
"  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad 
policy,"  and  Congress  "  has  the  power,  under  the  Constitution, 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia."  The  latter 
proposition  was  qualified  by  the  statement  that  this  power 
"  ought  not  to  be  exercised  unless  at  the  request  of  the  people 
of  said  District."  Certainly  this  protest  was  a  moderate  one, 
and  we  may  judge  by  it  something  of  the  character  of  the 
resolutions  which  compelled  its  utterance.  We  may  judge 
something  also  of  the  low  grade  of  anti-slavery  sentiment  in 
the  whig  party  at  that  time,  when  only  two  men  could  be 
found  to  sign  so  moderate  and  guarded  a  document  as  this. 
Still,  the  refusal  to  sign  may  have  been  a  matter  of  policy, 
for  which  a  good  reason  could  be  given.  It  was  something, 
however,  for  two  men  to  stand  out,  and  protest  that  slavery- 
was  a  moral  and  political  evil,  over  which  Congress  had  power 
upon  the  national  territory.  It  was  the  beginning  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  anti-slavery  record,  and  modest  and  moderate  as  it 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  71 

was,  and  much  as  Mr.  Lincoln  afterwards  accomplished  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  he  never  became  more  extreme  in  his 
views  than  the  words  of  this  protest  indicate.  He  never 
ceased  to  believe  that  Congress  had  no  power  under  the 
Constitution  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  different  states* 
He  never  thought  worse  of  slavery  than  that  it  was  founded 
in  injustice  and  bad  policy.  He  never  changed  his  belief 
touching  the  power  of  Congress  over  the  institution  of  slavery 
in  territory  under  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  United 
States.  This  little  protest,  entered  into  with  his  brother  rep 
resentative,  Dan  Stone,  was  the  outline  of  the  platform  upon 
which  he  stood,  and  fought  out  the  great  anti-slavery  battle 
whose  trophies  were  fout  million  freedrnen,  and  a  nation  re* 
deemed  to  justice  and  humanity.  , 

In  the  meantime,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  made  no  money.  He 
had  walked  his  hundred  miles  to  Vandalia  in  1836,  as  he  did 
in  1834,  and  when  the  session  closed  he  walked  home  again* 
A  gentleman  in  Menard  County  remembers  meeting  him  and 
a  detachment  of  "  The  Long  Nine  "  on  their  way  home.  They 
were  all  mounted  except  Lincoln,  who  had  thus  far  kept  up 
with  them  on  foot.  If  he  had  money,  he  was  hoarding  it  fojr 
more  important  purposes  than  that  of  saving  leg-weariness 
and  leather.  The  weather  was  raw,  and  Lincoln's  clothing 
was  none  of  the  warmest.  Complaining  of  being  cold  to  one 
of  his  companions,  this  irreverent  member  of  "The  Long 
Nine  "  told  his  future  President  that  it  was  no  wonder  he  was 
cold — "there  was  so  much  of  him  on  the  ground."  None  of 
the  party  appreciated  this  homely  joke  at  the  expense  of  his 
feet  (they  were  doubtless  able  to  bear  it)  more  thoroughly 
than  Lincoln  himself.  "We  can  imagine  the  cross-fires  of  wit 

O 

and  humor  by  which  the  way  was  enlivened  during  this  cold 
and  tedious  journey.  The  scene  was  certainly  a  rude  one, 
and  seems  more  like  a  dream  than  a  reality,  when  we  remem* 
ber  that  it  occurred  less  than  thirty  years  ago,  in  a  state  which 
now  contains  hardly  less  than  a  million  and  a  half  of  people 
and  three  thousand  miles  of  railway. 


CHAPTEE   VII. 

THE  time  had  come  with  Mr.  Lincoln  for  translation  to  a 
new  sphere  of  life.  By  the  scantiest  means  he  had  wrested 
from  the  hardest  circumstances  a  development  of  his  charac 
teristic  powers.  He  had  acquired  the  rudiments  of  an  Eng 
lish  education.  He  had  read  several  text  books  of  the  natural 
sciences,  with  special  attention  to  geology,  in  the  facts  and 
laws  of  which  he  had  become  particularly  intelligent.  He 
had  read  law  as  well  as  he  could  without  the  assistance  of 
preceptors.  He  had  attended  a  few  sessions  of  the  courts 
held  near  him,  and  had  become  somewhat  familiar  with  the 
practical  application  of  legal  processes.  He  had,  from  the 
most  discouraging  beginnings,  grown  to  be  a  notable  political 
debater.  He  had  had  experience  in  legislation,  had  received 
public  recognition  as  a  man  of  mark  and  power,  had  been  ac 
cepted  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  an  intelligent  and  morally  in 
fluential  political  party,  and  had  fairly  outgrown  the  humble 
conditions  by  which  his  life  had  hitherto  been  surrounded. 

At  this  time  he  received  from  his  Springfield  friend,  Major 
Stuart,  a  proposition  to  become  his  partner  in  the  practice  of 
the  law.  Mr.  Lincoln's  influence  in  securing  the  transfer  of 
the  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield  had  already  given  him 
a  favorable  introduction  to  the  people  of  the  city ;  and  on  the 
15th  of  April,  1837,  he  took  up  his  abode  there.  He  went 
to  his  new  home  with  great  self-distrust  and  with  many  mis 
givings  concerning  his  future;  but  Springfield  became  his 
permanent  home.  He  had  been  admitted  to  the  bar  during  the 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  73 

i 

autumn  of  1836,  and  went  to  his  work  with  the  ambition  to 
be  something,  and  the  determination  to  do  something. 

It  must  have  been  with  something  of  regret  that  he  turned 
his  back  upon  New  Salem,  for  he  left  behind  him  a  town  full 
of  friends,  who  had  watched  his  progress  with  the  friendliest 
interest,  aided  him  when  he  needed  aid,  and  appreciated  him. 
He  left  behind  him  all  the  stepping-stones  by  which  he  had 
mounted  to  the  elevation  he  had  reached — the  old  store-house 
where  he  had  been  a  successful  clerk,  the  old  store-house 
where  he  had  been  an  unsuccessful  principal,  the  scenes  of 
his  wrestling-matches  and  foot-races,  the  lounging-places 
where  he  had  sat  and  told  stories  with  a  post-office  in  his  hat, 
the  rough  audience-rooms  in  which  he  had  "  practiced  polem 
ics,"  the  places  where  he  had  had  his  rough  encounters  with 
the  Clary's  Grove  Boys,  and,  last,  the  old  oak  tree  whose 
shadow  he  had  followed  to  keep  his  law  text  out  of  the  sun. 
But  these  things  could  have  touched  him  but  little  when 
placed  by  the  side  of  a  few  cabin  homes,  presided  over  by 
noble  women  who,  with  womanly  instinct,  had  detected  the 
manliness  of  his  nature,  and  had  given  him  a  home  "  for  his 
company,"  as  they  kindly  said,  when  he  needed  one  in  charity. 
He  never  forgot  these  women,  and  occasion  afterward  came  to 
show  the  constancy  of  his  gratitude  and  the  faithfulness  of  his 
friendship.  Arriving  in  Springfield  he  became  a  member  of 
the  family  of  Hon.  William  Butler,  afterward  treasurer  of  the 
state,  and  here  came  under  influences  which,  to  a  man  bred  as 
he  had  been,  were  of  the  most  desirable  character. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  business  connection  with  Mr.  Stuart  must 

• 

have  been  broken  and  brief,  for  he  was  still  a  member  of  the 
legislature,  which  was  summoned  to  a  special  session  on  the 
July  following  his  removal  to  Springfield/ and  Mr.  Stuart, 
himself,  was  soon  afterwards  elected  to,  and  took  his  seat  in, 
Congress.  Still,  the  connection  was  one  of  advantage  to  the 
young  lawyer.  Mr.  Stuart's  willingness  to  receive  him  as  a 
partner  was  an  indorsement  of  his  powers  and  acquisitions 
that  must  have  helped  him  to  make  a  start  in  professional  life. 
This  life  the  people  of  Springfield,  who  gratefully  remembered 


74  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Ills  services  to  them  in  the  legislature,  would  not  permit  him 
to  pursue  without  interruption.  They  kept  him  upon  the  leg 
islative  ticket  in  1838,  and  he  was  re-elected.  On  the  assem 
bling  of  this  legislature,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  at  once  recognized  to 
be  the  foremost  man  on  the  whig  side  of  the  house,  and  was 
brought  forward,  without  any  dissent,  as  their  candidate  for 
speaker.  The  strength  of  this  legislature  was  pretty  evenly 
divided  between  the  two  parties.  A  great  change,  indeed, 
had  occurred  in  the  state.  The  financial  crash  of  1837  had 
prostrated  industry  and  trade,  and  the  people  had,  either  justly 
or  unjustly,  held  the  dominant  party  responsible  for  the  disas 
ters  from  which  they  had  suffered.  Anti-slavery  agitation  had 
been  voted  down  in  Congress  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
who  came  into  the  presidential  office  during  the  previous  year. 
All  papers  relating  to  slavery  were,  by  solemn  resolution  of 
Congress, ;  laid  on  the  table  without  being  debated,  read, 
printed  or  referred.  ~|  With  financial  ruin  in  the  country,  and 
a  gag-law  in  Congress,  the  democratic  party  had  a  heavier 
load  than  it  could  carry.  ^:.  This  was  felt  in  Illinois,  where  the 
old  democratic  majority  was  very  nearly  destroyed.  Colonel 
W.  L.  D.  Ewing  was  the  candidate  of  the  democrats  for 
speaker,  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  was  at  last  elected 
by  a  majority  of  one  , vote.  J.  Mr.  Lincoln  took  a  prominent 
part  in  all  the  debates  "of  the  session.  Some  of  them  were 
political,  and  were  intended  to  have  a  bearing  upon  the  next 
presidential  election,  and  especially  upon  the  politics  of  the 
state;  but  the  most  of  them  related  to  local  and  ephemeral 
affairs  which  will  be  of  no  interest  to  the  general  reader. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  ingenuity— 
his  quickness  at  expedients.;;.  One  of  his  modes  of  getting 
rid  of  troublesome  friends,  as  well  as  troublesome  enemies, 
was  by  telling  a  story.  %  He  4jegan  these  tactics  early  in  life, 
and  he  grew  to  be  wonderfully  adept  in  them.  If  a  man 
broached  a  subject  which  he  did  not  wish  to  discuss,  he  told  a 
story  which  changed  the  direction  of  the  conversation.  If  he 
was  called  upon  to  answer  a  question,  he  answered  it  by  tell 
ing  a  story.  .  He  had  a  story  for  everything — something  had 


- 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN".  75 

occurred  at  some  place  where  he  used  to  live,  that  illustrated 
every  possible  phase  of  every  possible  subject  with  which  he 
might  have  connection.  His  faculty  of  finding  or  making  a 
story  to  match  every  event  in  his  history,  and  every  event  to 
which  he  bore  any  relation,  was  really  marvelous.  That  he 
made,  or  adapted,  some  of  his  stories,  there  is  no  question. 
It  is  beyond  belief  that  those  which  entered  his  mind  left  it  no 
richer  than  they  came.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  spent 
any  time  in  elaborating  them,  but  by  some  law  of  association 
every  event  that  occurred  suggested  some  story,  and,  almost 
by  an  involuntary  process,  his  mind  harmonized  their  discord 
ant  points,  and  the  story  was  pronounced  "pat,"  because  it 
was  made  so  before  it  was  uttered.  Every  truth,  or  combi 
nation  of  truths,  seemed  immediately  to  clothe  itself  in  a  form 
of  life,  where  he  kept  it  for  reference.  His  mind  was  full  of 
stories ;  and  the  great  facts  of  his  life  and  history  on  entering 
his  mind  seemed  to  take  up  their  abode  in  these  stories,  and 
if  the  garment  did  not  fit  them  it  was  so  modified  that  it  did. 

A  e;ood  instance  of  the  execution  which  he  sometimes  ef 
ts 

fected  with  a  story  occurred  in  the  legislature.  There  was  a 
troublesome  member  from  Wabash  County,  who  gloried  par 
ticularly  in  being  a  "  strict  constructionist."  He  found  some 
thing  "  unconstitutional "  in  every  measure  that  was  brought 
forward  for  discussion.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Judiciary 
Committee,  and  was  quite  apt,  after  giving  every  measure  a 
heavy  pounding,  to  advocate  its  reference  to  this  committee. 
No  amount  of  sober  argument  could  floor  the  member  from 
Wabash.  At  last,  he  came  to  be  considered  a  man  to  be  si 
lenced,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  resorted  to  for  an  expedient  by 
which  this  object  might  be  accomplished.  He  soon  afterwards 
honored  the  draft  thus  made  upon  him.  A  measure  was 
brought  forward  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln's  constituents  were 
interested,  .when  the  member  from  Wabash  rose  and  dis 
charged  all  his  batteries  upon  its  unconstitutional  points. 
Mr.  Lincoln  then  took  the  floor,  and,  with  the  quizzical  ex 
pression  of  features  which  he  could  assume  at  will,  and  » 
mirthful  twinkle  in  his  gray  eyes,  said :  "  Mr,  Speaker,  the 


76  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

attack  of  the  member  from  Wabash  on  the  constitutionality 
of  this  measure  reminds  me  of  an  old  friend  of  mine.  He  's 
a  peculiar  looking  old  fellow,  with  shaggy,  overhanging  eye 
brows,  and  a  pair  of  spectacles  under  them.  (Everybody 
turned  to  the  member  from  Wabash,  and  recognized  a  personal 
description.)  One  morning  just  after  the  old  man  got  up,  he 
imagined,  on  looking  out  of  his  door,  that  he  saw  rather  a 
lively  squirrel  on  a  tree  near  his  house.  So  he  took  down  his 
rifle,  and  fired  at  the  squirrel,  but  the  squirrel  paid  no  atten 
tion  to  the  shot.  He  loaded  and  fired  again,  and  again,  until, 
at  the  thirteenth  shot,  he  set  down  his  gun  impatiently,  and 
said  to  his  boy,  who  was  looking  on,  *  Boy,  there  's  something 
wrons;  about  this  rifle.'  'Rifle's  all  right,  I  know  'tis,'  re- 

O  O         ' 

sponded  the  boy,  'but  where 's  your  squirrel?'  'Don't  you 
see  him,  humped  up  about  half  way  up  the  tree  ? '  inquired 
the  old  man,  peering  over  his  spectacles,  and  getting  mystified. 
4  No,  I  don't,'  responded  the  boy ;  and  then  turning  and  look 
ing  into  his  father's  face,  he  exclaimed,  '  I  see  your  squirrel ! 
You  've  been  firing  at  a  louse  on  your  eyebrow! ' ' 

The  story  needed  neither  application  nor  explanation.  The 
House  was  in  convulsions  of  laughter;  for  Mr.  Lincoln's  skill 
in  telling  a  story  was  not  inferior  to  his  appreciation  of  its 
points  and  his  power  of  adapting  them  to  the  case  in  hand. 
It  killed  off  the  member  from  Wabash,  who  was  very  careful 
afterwards  not  to  provoke  any  allusion  to  his  "eyebrows." 

A  man  who  practiced  law  in  Illinois  in  the  earlier  years  of 
the  state  "  rode  the  circuit,"  a  proceeding  of  which  the  older 
communities  of  the  East  know  nothing.  The  state  of  Illinois, 
for  instance,  is  divided  into  a  number  of  districts,  each  com 
posed  of  a  number  of  counties,  of  which  a  single  judge,  ap 
pointed  or  elected,  as  the  case  may  be,  for  that  purpose,  makes 
the  circuit,  holding  courts  at  each  county  seat.  Railroads 
being  scarce,  the  earlier  circuit  judges  made  their  trips  from 
county  to  county  on  horseback,  or  in  a  gig ;  and,  as  lawyers 
were  not  located  in  each  county,  all  the  prominent  lawyers 
living  within  the  limits  of  the  circuit  made  the  tour  of  the 
circuit  with  the  judge.  After  the  business  of  one  county  was 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  77 

finished,  the  judge  and  all  the  lawyers  mounted  their  horses 
.  or  their  gigs  and  pushed  on  to  the  next  county-seat,  and  so 
repeated  the  process  until  the  whole  circuit  was  compassed ; 
and  this  is  what  is  known  in  the  western  states  as  "riding 
the  circuit." 

Mr.  Lincoln  rode  the  circuit ;  and  it  was  upon  these  long 
and  tedious  trips  that  he  established  his  reputation  as  one  of 
the  best  lawyers  in  Illinois,  and,  in  some  respects,  the  superior 
of  any  lawyer  in  the  state.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he  waar 
ever  regarded  by  his  professional  brethren  as  a  well-read  law 
yer.  Toward  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  he  had,  by  his  own 
powers  of  generalization  and. deduction,  become  versed  in  the 
principles  of  law,  and  was  coming  to  be  recognized  by  the 
best  lawyers  as  their  peer ;  but  his  education  was  too  defective 
at  the  first  to  make  him  anything  better  than  what  is  called 
"  a  case  lawyer."  He  studied  his  cases  with  great  thorough 
ness,  and  was  so  uniformly  successful  in  them  that  the  people 
regarded  him  as  having  no  equal.  He  liad  been  engaged  in 
practice  but  a  short  time  when  he  was  found  habitually  on 
one  side  or  the  other  of  every  important  case  in  the  circuit. 
The  writer  remembers  an  instance  in  which  many  years  ago, 
before  he  had  risen  to  political  eminence,  he  was  pointed  out 
to  a  stranger,  by  a  citizen  of  Springfield,  as  "  Abe  Lincoln, 
the  first  lawyer  of  Illinois."  He  certainly  enjoyed  great 
reputation  among  the  people. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  very  weak  lawyer  when  engaged  by  the 
weak  side.  This  side  he  never  took,  if,  by  careful  investiga 
tion  of  the  case,  he  could  avoid  it.  If  a  man  went  to  him 
with  the  proposal  to  institute  a  suit,  he  examined  carefully  the 
man's  grounds  for  the  action.  If  these  were  good,  he  entered 
upon  the  case,  and  prosecuted  it  faithfully  to  the  end.  If  the 
grounds  were  not  good  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
case.  „  He  invariably  advised  the  applicant  to  dismiss  the 
matter,  telling  him  frankly  that  he  had  no  case,  and  ought 
not  to  prosecute.  Sometimes  he  was  deceived.  Sometimes 
he  discovered,  in  the  middle  of  a  trial,  by  the  revelation  of  a 
witness,  that  his  client  had  lied  to  him.  After  the  moment 


78  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  lie  was  convinced  that  justice  was  opposed  to  him  and 
his  client,  he  lost  all  his  enthusiasm  and  all  his  courage.  In 
deed,  he  lost  all  interest  in  the  case.  His  efforts  for  his  client 
after  that  moment  were  simply  mechanical,  for  he  would  not 
lie  for  any  man,  or  strive  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better 
reason  for  any  man.  He  had  a  genuine  interest  in  the  estab 
lishment  of  justice  between  man  and  man.  As  a  citizen,  as  a 
lover  of  good  order,  as  a  man  who  believed  in  truth  and  jus 
tice,  he  was,  by  every  instinct  of  his  nature,  opposed  to  the 
success  of  villainy  and  the  triumph  of  wrong,  and  he  would 
not  sell  himself  to  purposes  of  injustice  and  immorality.  He 
repeatedly  refused  to  take  fees  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  case. 
When  his  clients  had  practiced  gross  deception  upon  him,  he 
forsook  their  cases  in  mid-passage ;  and  he  always  refused  to 
accept  fees  of  those  whom  he  advised  not  to  prosecute.  On 
one  occasion,  while  engaged  upon  an  important  case,  he  dis 
covered  that  he  was  on  the  wrong  side.  His  associate  in  the 
case  was  immediately  informed  that  he  (Lincoln)  would  not 
make  the  plea.  The  associate  made  it,  and  the  case,  much  to 
the  surprise  of  Lincoln,  was  decided  for  his  client.  Perfectly 
convinced  that  his  client  was  wrong,  he  would  not  receive  one 
cent  of  the  fee  of  nine  hundred  dollars  which  he  paid.  It  is 
not  wonderful  that  one  who  knew  him  well  spoke  of  him  as 
"perversely  honest." 

This  "riding  the  circuit"  was,  in  those  early  days,  a  pecu 
liar  business,  and  tended  to  develop  peculiar  traits  of  charac 
ter.  The  long  passages  from  court-house  to  court-house,  the 
stopping  at  cabins  by  the  way  to  eat,  or  sleep,  or  feed  the 
horse,  the  evenings  at  the  country  taverns,  the  expedients  re 
sorted  to  to  secure  amusement,  the  petty,  mean  and  shameful 
cases  that  abounded,  must  have  tended  to  make  it  a  strange 
business,  and  not  altogether  a  pleasant  one.  These  long  pas 
sages  while  ridino*  the  circuit  were  seasons  of  reflection  with 

C5 

Mr.  Lincoln.  An  amusing  incident  occurred  in  connection 
with  one  of  these  journeys,  which  gives  a  pleasant  glimpse 
into  the  good  lawyer's  heart.  He  was  riding  by  a  deep 
slough,  in  which,  to  his  exceeding  pain,  he  saw  a  pig  strug- 


LIFE  OF 'ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  79 

gling,  and  with  such  faint  efforts  that  it  was  evident  that  he 
could  not  extricate  himself  from  the  mud.  '  Mr.  Lincoln  looked 
at  the  pig  and  the  mud  which  enveloped  him,  and  then  looked 
at  some  new  clothes  with  which  he  had  but  a  short  time  before 
enveloped  himself.  Deciding  against  the  claims  of  the  pig, 
he  rode  on,  but  he  could  not  get  rid  of  the  vision  of  the  poor 
brute,  and,  at  last,  after  riding  two  miles,  he  turned  back,  de 
termined  to  rescue  the  animal  at  the  expense  of  his  new  clothes. 
Arrived  at  the  spot,  he  tied  his  horse,  and  coolly  went  to  work 
to  'build  of  old  rails  a  passage  to  the  bottom  of  the  hole. 
Descending  on  these  rails,  he  seized  the  pig  and  dragged  him 
out,  but  not  without  serious  damage  to  the  clothes  he  wore. 
Washing  his  hands  in  the  nearest  brook,  and  wiping  them  on 
the  grass,  he  mounted  his  gig  and  rode  along.  He  then  fell 
to  examining  the  motive  that  sent  him  back  to  the  release  of 
the  pig.  At  the  first  thought,  it  seemed  to  be  pure  benevo 
lence,  but,  at  length,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was 
selfishness,  for  he  certainly  went  to  the  pig's  relief  in  order 
(as  he  said  to  the  friend  to  whom  he  related  the  incident,)  to 
"take  a  pain  out  of  his  own  mind."  This  is  certainly  a  new 
view  of  the  nature  of  sympathy,  and  one  which  it  will  be  well 
for  the  casuist  to  examine. 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  regarded  by  his  professional 
associates  as  profoundly  versed  in  the  principles  of  law,  he 
was  looked  upon  by  them  as  a  very  remarkable  advocate. 
No  man  in  Illinois  had  such  power  before  a  jury  as  he.  This 
was  a  fact  universally  admitted.  The  elements  of  his  power 
as  an  advocate  were  perfect  lucidity  of  statement,  great  fair 
ness  in  the  treatment  of  both  sides  of  a  case,  and  the  skill  to 
Conduct  a  common  mind  along  the  chain  of  his  logic  to  his  own 
Conclusion.  In  presenting  a  case  to  a  jury,  he  invariably  pre 
sented  both  sides  of  it.  After  he  had  done  this,  there  was 
really  little  more  to  be  said,  for  he  could  state  the  points  of 
his  opponent  better  generally  than  his  opponent  could  state 
them  for  himself.  The  man  who  followed  him  usually  found 
himself  handling  that  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  already  reduced 
to  chaff.  There  was  really  no  trick  about  this.  In  the  first 


80  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

place  he  would  not  take  a  case  in  which  he  did  not  believe  he 
was  on  the  side  of  justice.  Believing  that  the  right  was  with 
him,  he  felt  that  he  could  afford  to  give  to  the  opposing  coun 
sel  everything  that  he  could  claim,  and  still  have  material 
enough  left  for  carrying  his  verdicts.  His  fairness  was  not 
only  apparent  but  real,  and  the  juries  he  addressed  knew  it  to 
be  so.  He  would  stand  before  a  jury  and  yield  point  after 
point  that  nearly  every  other  lawyer  would  dispute  under  the 
same  circumstances,  so  that,  sometimes,  his  clients  trembled 
with  apprehension ;  and  then,  after  he  had  given  his  opponent 
all  he  had  claimed,  and  more  than  he  had  dared  to  claim,  he 
would  state  his  own  side  of  the  case  with  such  power  and 
clearness  that  that  which  had  seemed  strong  against  him  was 

O        D 

reduced  to  weakness,  that  which  had  seemed  to  be  sound  was 
proved  to  be  specious,  and  that  which  had  the  appearance  of 
being  conclusive  against  him  was  plainly  seen  to  be  corrobo 
rative  of  his  own  positions  on  the  question  to  be  decided. 
Every  juror  was  made  to  feel  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  an  abso 
lute  aid  to  him  in  arriving  at  an  intelligent  and  impartial  ver 
dict.  The  cunning  lawyers  thought  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
very  cunning  in  all  this — thought  that  his  fairness  was  only 
apparent  and  assumed  for  a  purpose — but  it  has  already  been 
stated  that  cunning  was  not  an  element  of  his  nature.  He 
had  no  interest  in  the  establishment  of  anything  but  justice, 
and  injustice,  even  if  it  favored  him,  could  give  him  no  satis 
faction.  The  testimony  of  the  lawyers  who  were  obliged  to 
try  cases  with  him  is  that  he  was  "a  hard  man  to  meet." 

Coming  from  the  people,  and  being  perfectly  familiar  with 
the  modes  of  thought  and  mental  capacity  of  the  men  who 
generally  composed  his  juries,  he  knew  all  their  difficulties, 
knew  just  what  language  to  address  to  them,  what  illustrations 
to  use,  and  how  to  bring  his  arguments  to  bear  upon  their 
minds.  This  point  is  well  illustrated  by  the  details  of  a  case 
in  the  Coles  Circuit  Court. 

The  controversy  was  about  a  colt,  in  which  thirty-four  wit 
nesses  swore  that  they  had  known  the  colt  from  its  falling,  and 
that  it  was  the  property  of  the  plaintiff,  while  thirty  swore 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  81 

that  they  had  known  the  colt  from  its  falling,  and  that  it  was 
the  property  of  the  defendant.  It  may  be  stated,  at  starting, 
that  these  witnesses  were  all  honest,  and  that  the  mistake 
grew  out  of  the  exact  resemblances  which  two  colts  bore  to 
each  other.  One  circumstance  was  proven  by  all  the  wit 
nesses,  or  nearly  all  of  them,  viz :  that  the  two  claimants  of 
the  colt  agreed  to  meet  on  a  certain  day  with  the  two  mares 
which  were  respectively  claimed  to  be  the  dams  of  the  colt, 
and  permit  the  colt  to  decide  which  of  the  two  he  belonged 
to.  The  meeting  occurred  according  to  agreement,  and,  as  it 
was  a  singular  case  and  excited  a  good  deal  of  popular  in 
terest,  there  were  probably  a  hundred  men  assembled  on  their 
horses  and  mares,  from  far  and  near.  Now  the  colt  really 
belonged  to  the  defendant  in  the  case.  It  had  strayed  away 
and  fallen  into  company  with  the  plaintiff's  horses.  The  plain 
tiff's  colt  had,  at  the  same  time,  strayed  away,  and  had  not 
.Returned,  and  was  not  to  be  found.  The  moment  the  two 
i'  mares  were  brought  upon  the  ground,  the  defendant's  mare 
and  the  colt  gave  signs  of  recognition.  The  colt  went  to  its 
dam,  and  would  not  leave  her.  They  fondled  each  other ; 
and,  although  the  plaintiff  brought  his  mare  between  them, 
and  tried  in  various  ways  to  divert  the  colt's  attention,  the 
colt  would  not  be  separated  from  its  dam.  It  then  followed 
her  home,  a  distance  of  eight  or  ten  miles,  and,  when  within 
a  mile  or  two  of  the  stables,  took  a  short  cut  to  them  in  ad 
vance  of  its  dam,  The  plaintiff  had  sued  to  recover  the  colt 
thus  gone  back  to  its  owner. 

In  the  presentation  of  this  case  to  the  jury,  there  were 
thirty-four  witnesses  on  the  side  of  the  plaintiff,  while  the  de 
fendant  had,  on  his  side,  only  thirty  witnesses;  but  he  had  on 
his  side  the  colt  itself  and  its  dam — thirty-four  men  against 
thirty  men  and  two  brutes.  Here  was  a  case  that  was  to  be 
decided  by  the  preponderance  of  evidencec  All  the  witnesses 
were  equally  positive,  and  equally  credible,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  on  the  side  of  the  defendant,  and  contended  that  the  voice 
of  nature  in  the  mare  and  colt  ought  to  outweigh  the  testimony 
of  a  hundred  men.  The  jury  were  all  farmers,  and  all  illiter- 
6 


2  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ate  men,  and  he  took  great  pains  to  make  them  understand 
what  was  meant  by  the  "  preponderance  of  evidence."  He 
said  that  in  a  civil  suit,  absolute  certainty,  or  such  certainty 
as  would  be  required  to  convict  a  man  of  crime,  was  not  es 
sential.  They  must  decide  the  case  according  to  the  impres 
sion  which  the  evidence  had  produced  upon  their  minds,  and, 
if  they  felt  puzzled  at  all,  he  would  give  them  a  test  by  which 
they  could  bring  themselves  to  a  just  conclusion.  "Now," 
said  he,  "if  you  were  going  to  bet  on  this  case, on  which  side 
would  you  be  willing  to  risk  a  picayune?  That  side  on  which 
you  would  be  willing  to  bet  a  picayune,  is  the  side  on  which 
rests  the  preponderance  of  evidence  in  your  minds.  It  is 
possible  that  you  may  not  be  right,  but  that  is  not  the  ques 
tion.  The  question  is  as  to  where  the  preponderance  of  evi 
dence  lies,  and  you  can  judge  exactly  where  it  lies  in  your 
minds,  by  deciding  as  to  which  side  you  would  be  willing  to 
bet  on." 

The  jury  understood  this.  There  was  no  mystification 
about  it.  They  had  got  hold  of  a  test  by  which  they  could 
render  an  intelligent  verdict.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  into  their 
minds,  and  knew  exactly  what  they  needed  ;  and  the  moment 
they  received  it,  he  knew  that  his  case  was  safe,  as  a  quick 
verdict  for  the  defendant  proved  it  to  be.  In  nothing  con 
nected  with  this  case  was  the  ingenuity  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
more  evident,  perhaps,  than  in  the  insignificance  of  the  sum 
which  he  placed  in  risk  by  the  hypothetical  wager.  It  was 
not  a  hundred  dollars,  or  a  thousand  dollars,  or  even  a  dollar, 
but  the  smallest  silver  coin,  to  show  to  them  that  the  verdict 
should  go  with  the  preponderance  of  evidence,  even  if  the 
preponderance  should  be  only  a  hair's  weight. 

If  it  was  the  habit  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  present  both  sides  of 
his  cases  to  the  jury,  it  was,  of  course,  his  habit  to  study  both 
sides  with  equal  thoroughness.  He  was  called  slow  in  arriv 
ing  at  the  points  of  a  case.  It  is  probably  true  that  his  mind 
was  not  one  of  the  quickest  in  the  processes  of  investigation. 
He  certainly  exercised  great  care  in  coming  to  his  conclusions. 
It  was  then,  in  the  days  of  his  legal  practice,  his  habit  to 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  83 

argue  against  himself,  and  it  always  remained  the  habit  of  his 
life.  He  took  special  interest  in  the  investigation  of  every 
point  that  could  be  made  against  him  and  his  positions.  This 
habit  made  his  processes  of  investigation  slower  than  those 
of  other  men,  while  the  limited  range  of  his  legal  education 
rendered  it  necessary  that  lie  should  bestow  more  study  upon 
his  cases  than  better  educated  lawyers  found  it  necessary  to 
bestow. 

One  of  the  most  even-tempered  men  that  ever  lived,  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  the  subject  of  great  varieties  of  mood,  and  ex 
tremes  of  feeling.  His  constitution  embraced  remarkable  con 
tradictions.  Oppressed  with  a  deep  melancholy  at  times, 
weighed  down  by  the  great  problems  of  his  own  life  and  of 
humanity  at  large,  assuming  and  carrying  patiently  the  most 
important  public  burdens,  he  was  as  simple  as  a  boy,  took 
delight  in  the  most  trivial  things,  and  with  the  subtlest  and 
quickest  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  laughed  incontinently  over 
incidents  and  stories  that  would  hardly  move  any  other  man 
in  his  position  to  a  smile.  At  one  time,  while  riding  the  cir 
cuit  with  a  friend,  he  entered  into  an  exposition  of  his  feelings 
touching  what  seemed  to  him  the  growing  corruption  of  the 
world,  in  politics  and  morals.  "  Oh  how  hard  it  is,"  he  ex 
claimed,  "  to  die,  and  not  to  be  able  to  leave  the  world  any 
better  for  one's  little  life  in  it ! "  Here  was  a  key  to  one  cause 
of  his  depression,  and  an  index  to  his  aspirations.  After  this 
conversation  and  the  ride  were  over,  he  probably  arrived  at  a 
country  tavern,  and  there  spent  the  evening  in  telling  stories 
to  his  brother  lawyers,  and  in  laughing  over  the  most  trifling 
incidents. 

It  will  perhaps  be  as  well,  at  this  point  of  his  history  as 
elsewhere,  to  allude  to  his  habit  of  telling  stories  that  it 
would  not  be  proper  to  repeat  in  the  presence  of  women.  It 
is  useless  for  Mr.  Lincoln's  biographers  to  ignore  this  habit, 
for  it  was  notorious.  The  whole  AVest,  if  not  the  whole 
country,  is  full  of  these  stories;  and  there  is  no  doubt  at  all 
that  he  indulged  in  them  with  the  same  freedom  that  he  did 
in  those  of  a  less  exceptionable  character.  Good  people  are 


tf          ,  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

at  a  loss  to  account  for  this  apparent  love  of  impurity,  in  a 
man  of  such  exalted  aims,  such  deep  truthfulness,  such  high 
aspirations.  The  matter  is  easily  explained. 

Those  who  have  heard  these  stories  will  readily  admit  that 
they  are  the  wittiest  and  most  amusing  of  their  kind,  and, 
when  they  have  admitted  that,  they  have  in  their  minds  the 
only  reason  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  indulgence  in  them.  It  was 
always  the  elements  of  wit  and  humor  that  captivated  him. 
He  was  not  an  impure  man  in  his  life,  or  in  his  imaginations. 
For  impurity's  sake,  he  never  uttered  an  impure  word,  or 
made  an  impure  allusion,  but,  whenever  he  found  anything 
humorous,  ludicrous  or  witty,  he  could  not  resist  the  inclina 
tion  to  use  it,  whatever  the  incidents  might  be  with  which  it 
was  associated.  Anything  that  was  morally  beautiful  touched 
him  to  tears.  He  was  equally  sensitive  to  all  that  was  heroic, 
beautiful,  grand,  sweet,  ludicrous  and  grotesque  in  human  life. 
He  wept  as  readily  over  a  tale  of  heroic  self-devotion,  as  he 
laughed  over  a  humorous  story. 

It  is  also  to  be  said  that  the  habit  of  telling  these  excep 
tionable  stories  was  the  habit  of  his  profession,  in  his  region 
of  country,  at  the  time  he  was  engaged  in  practice  there. 
He  indulged  in  them  no  more  than  his  brother  lawyers,  and 
he  excelled  them  in  his  stories  no  more  than  he  did  in  every 
thing  else.  It  is  to  be  said,  further,  that  there  is  something 
in  the  practice  of  the  law  that  makes  these  stories  more  toler 
able  in  the  legal  profession,  even  when  the  members  of  it  are 
Christian  men — men  of  pure  morals  and  pure  instincts — than 
in  any  other  profession  in  the  world.  The  legal  profession 
brings  men  into  constant  association  with  impurity,  with  the 
details  of  cases  of  shame,  with  all  the  smut  and  dirt  that  can 
be  raked  from  the  haunts  of  vice,  with  all  the  particulars  of 
prurient  dalliance  and  bestial  licentiousness.  With  this  ha 
bitual — this  professional — familiarity  with  impurity,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  sense  of  propriety  in  language  becomes  dead 
ened  ;  and  none  know  better  than  lawyers  that  there  is  in  their 
profession,  in  the  older  parts  of  the  country  as  well  as  in  the 
newer,  great  laxity  of  speech,  touching  subjects  which  they 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  85 

would  blush  to  introduce — which  would  cost  them  their  self- 
respect  and  the  respect  of  the  community  to  introduce — among 
women.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  sinner  in  this  thing  above 
other  men,  equally  pure  and  good  in  his  profession.  It  is  not 
a  habit  to  be  justified  in  any  man.  It  is  not  a  habit  to  be 
tolerated  in  any  man  who  indulges  in  it  to  gratify  simply  his 
love  of  that  which  is  beastly.  In  Mr.  Lincoln's  case,  it  is  a 
habit  to  be  explained  and  regretted.  His  whole  life  had  been 
spent  with  people  without  refinement.  His  legal  study  and 
practice  had  rendered  this  class  of  subjects  familiar.  It  was 
the  habit  of  his  professional  brethren  to  tell  these  objectionable 
stories,  and,  even  if  his  pure  sensibilities  sometimes  rebelled — 
for  he  possessed  and  always  maintained  the  profoundest 
respect  for  women — the  wit  and  humor  they  contained  over- 
tempted  him. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  traits  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  his 
considerate  regard  for  the  poor  and  obscure  relatives  he  had 
left,  plodding  along  in  their  humble  ways  of  life.  Wherever 
upon  his  circuit  he  found  them,  he  always  went  to  their  dwel 
lings,  ate  with  them,  and,  when  convenient,  made  their  houses 
his  home.  He  never  assumed  in  their  presence  the  slightest 
superiority  to  them,  in  the  facts  and  conditions  of  his  life. 
He  gave  them  money  when  they  needed  and  he  possessed  it. 
Countless  times  he  was  known  to  leave  his  companions  at  the 
village  hotel,  after  a  hard  day's  work  in  the  court  room,  and 
spend  the  evening  with  these  old  friends  and  companions  of 
his  humbler  days.  On  one  occasion,  when  urged  not  to  go,  he 
replied,  "Why,  aunt's  heart  would  be  broken  if  I  should 
leave  town  without  calling  upon  her;"  yet  he  was  obliged  to 
walk  several  miles  to  make  the  call. 

,  A  little  fact  in  this  connection  will  illustrate  his  ever-present 
'desire  to  deal  honestly  and  justly  with  men.  He  had  always 
a  partner  in  his  professional  life,  and,  when  he  went  out  upon 
the  circuit,  this  partner  was  usually  at  home.  While  out,  he 
frequently  took  up  and  disposed  of  cases  that  were  never  en 
tered  at  the  office.  In  these  cases,  after  receiving  his  fees, 
he  divided  the  money  in  his  pocket  book,  labeling  each  sunj 


86  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

(wrapped  in  a  piece  of  paper,)  that  belonged  to  his  partner, 
stating  Ills  name,  and  the  case  on  which  it  was  received.  He 
could  not  be  content  to  keep  an  account.  He  divided  the 
money,  so  that  if  he,  by  any  casualty,  should  fail  of  an  oppor 
tunity  to  pay  it  over,  there  could  be  no  dispute  as  to  the  exact 
amount  that  was  his  partner's  due.  This  may  seem  trivial, 
nay,  boyish,  but  it  was  like  Mr.  Lincoln.  But  we  must  set 
aside  the  professional  man  for  a  while,  to  notice  other  affairs 
which  mingled  in  his  life. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE  "  Sangamon  Chief,"  as  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  popularly 
named,  was  placed  upon  the  legislative  ticket  again  in  1810, 
and  re-elected.  At  a  special  session  of  the  previous  legisla 
ture,  held  during  1839,  Vandalia  as  the  capital  of  the  state 
had  been  forsaken,  and  Springfield  received  the  legislature 
and  the  archives  and  offices  of  the  state  government.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  in  the  legislature,  and,  at  the  same  time,  at  home. 
The  fact  reconciled  him  to  holding  an  office  which  he  felt  to 
be  a  disadvantage  to  his  business,  for  he  could  attend  upon  his 
duties  at  the  State  House,  and,  at  the  same  time,  have  a  care 
that  his  professional  interests  were  not  entirely  sacrificed.  In 
the  only  session  held  by  the  legislature  of  1840,  no  important 
business  of  general  interest  was  transacted.  The  democratic 
preponderance  in  the  state  had  been  partially  restored  and 
was  still  maintained,  and  although  Mr.  Lincoln  was  again  the 
first  man  on  the  whig  side  and  the  candidate  for  speaker,  for 
which  office  he  was  supported  by  more  than  the  strength  of 
his  party,  he  was  defeated  as  he  had  been  in  1838.  This  ses 
sion  finished  up  Mr.  Lincoln's  connection  writh  the  legislature 
of  the  state,  for,  although  urged  by  the  people  to  represent 
them  again,  considerations  of  a  private  nature  made  him  per 
emptory  in  his  refusal  to  be  again  a  candidate.  It  is  recorded, 
however,  that  he  was  re-elected  in  1854,  and  that  he  resigned 
before  taking  his  seat.  The  election  was  made  against  his 
will,  for  a  larger  political  life  was  already  dawning  upon  him. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  a  strange  incident  in  his  private 


88  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

life  occurred — one,  certainly,  which  was  quite  in  discord  with 
his  principles  and  feelings.  A  sharp,  sarcastic  poem  appeared 
in  the  Sangamon  Journal,  edited  at  that  time  by  Simeon 
Francis.  The  poem  had  an  evident  allusion  to  James  Shields, 
a  young  lawyer  of  Springfield,  and  since  a  United  States 
Senator  from  Illinois.  General  Shields  was  at  that  time  hot- 
blooded  and  impulsive,  and,  instead  of  laughing  off  the  matter, 
regarded  it  seriously,  and  demanded  of  Mr.  Francis  the  au 
thor's  name.  Mr.  Francis  knew  at  once  what  the  demand 
meant,  and  sought  to  delay  his  answer.  He  asked  the  young 
man  for  a  day  to  consider  whether  he  should  reveal  the  name 
of  his  contributor  or  not.  The  request  was  granted,  when  Mr. 
Francis  went  to  work  to  ascertain  how  he  could  lift  the  respon 
sibility  of  the  publication  from  his  own  shoulders,  as  the  writer 
of  the  poem  was  a  lady.  On  inquiry  among  the  lady's 
friends,  he  ascertained  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was,  at  least,  one  of 
her  admirers,  and  that  he  possibly  bore  a  tenderer  relation  to 
her.  Accordingly  he  went  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  told  him  thai 
he  was  in  trouble,  and  explained  to  him  the  cause  of  his  diffi 
culty.  It  seemed  certain  that  somebody  would  be  obliged  to 
fight  a  duel  with  Mr.  Shields,  or  be  branded  by  him  as  a  cow 
ard  ;  and  Mr.  Francis,  though  entirely  responsible  for  the  pub 
lication  of  a  lady's  poem  shrank,  in  a  very  unworthy  way, 
from  the  alternative. 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Lincoln  comprehended  the  case,  and  saw 
what  Mr.  Francis  expected  of  him,  he  told  the  editor  that  if 
Mr.  Shields  should  call  again,  and  demand  the  author's  name, 
to  inform  him  that  he,  Lincoln,  held  himself  responsible  for 
the  poem.  The  result  was  just  what  was  expected,  at  least 
by  Mr.  Francis.  Mr.  Lincoln  at  once  received  a  challenge 
and  accepted  it.  There  must  have  existed  in  that  part  of  the 
country,  at  that  time,  a  state  of  feeling  on  this  subject  which 
cannot  now  be  comprehended  among  the  people  of  the  North. 
With  a  natural  aversion  to  all  violence  and  bloodshed,  with  a 
moral  sense  that  shrank  from  the  barbaric  arbitrament  of  the 
duel,  with  his  whole  soul  at  war  with  the  policy  which  seeks 
to  heal  a  wound  of  honor  by  the  commission  of  a  crime,  he, 


LIFE   OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  89 

walked  with  his  eyes  wide  open  into  this  duel.  It  is  possible 
that  he  imagined  Mr.  Shields  did  not  mean  a  duel  by  his 
question,  or  that  he  would  not  fight  a  duel  with  him;  but  he 
certainly  knew  that  he  made  himself  liable  to  a  challenge,  and 
intended  to  accept  it  if  it  came.  Gallantry  was,  of  course, 
the  moving  power.  The  lady's  name  was  to  be  protected,  and 
the  editor  who  had  been  imprudent  enough  to  publish  her 
poem  relieved  from  all  responsibility  on  her  account. 

Mr.  Lincoln  selected  broad-swords  as  the  weapons  for  the 
encounter,  and  immediately  took  instruction  in  the  exercise  of 
that  arm,  of  Dr.  E.  H.  Merriman,  a  physician  of  Springfield. 
The  place  of  meeting  was  Bloody  Island,  a  disputed  or  neu 
tral  territory  on  the  Mississippi  River,  lying  between  Illinois 
and  Missouri.  The  meeting  took  place  according  to  appoint 
ment,  but  friends  interfered,  determined  that  on  such  foolish 
grounds  no  duel  should  be  fought,  and  no  blood  shed.  The 
parties  were  brought  together,  and  a  reconciliation  easily  ef 
fected.  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  afterwards  that  he  could  have  done, 
under  the  circumstances,  no  less  than  he  did.  He  stated  to  a 
friend,  however,  that  he  selected  broad-swords  because  his 
arms  were  long.  He  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  injur 
ing  Mr.  Shields,  and  thought  that  the  length  of  his  arms  would 
aid  him  in  defending  his  own  person. 

This  incident  does  not  seem  to  have  been  remembered 
against  Mr.  Lincoln,  by  any  class  of  the  community  in  which 
he  lived.  It  was  certainly  a  boyish  affair,  and  was  probably 
regarded  and  forgotten  as  such.  Even  the  excitements  of  a 
great  political  campaign,  like  that  which  resulted  in  his  elec 
tion  to  the  presidency,  did  not  call  it  from  its  slumbers,  and 
the  American  people  were  spared  a  representation  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  atrocities  as  a  duelist. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  law  partnership  with  Mr.  Stuart  was  dis 
solved  in  1840,  when  he  immediately  formed  a  business  asso 
ciation  with  Judge  S.  T.  Logan  of  Springfield,  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  learned  lawyers  in  the  state.  Pie  entered 
upon  this  new  partnership  with  a  determination  to  devote  his 
time  more  exclusively  to  business  than  he  had  done,  but  the 


90  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

people  would  not  permit  him  to  do  so.  He  was  called  upon 
from  all  quarters  to  engage  in  the  exciting  political  canvass  of 
1840,  and  made  many  speeches. 

In  1842,  having  arrived  at  his  thirty-third  year,  Mr.  Lincoln 
married  Miss  Mary  Todd,  a  daughter  of  Hon.  Robert  S.  Todd 
of  Lexington,  Kentucky.  The  marriage  took  place  in  Spring 
field,  where  the  lady  had  for  several  years  resided,  on  the 
fourth  of  November  of  the  year  mentioned.  It  is  probable 
that  he  married  as  early  as  the  circumstances  of  his  life  per 
mitted,  for  he  had  always  loved  the  society  of  women,  and 
possessed  a  nature  that  took  profound  delight  in  intimate  fe 
male  companionship.  A  letter  written  on  the  eighteenth  of 
May  following  his  marriage,  to  3.  F.  Speed,  Esq.,  of  Louis 
ville,  Kentucky,  an  early  and  a  life-long  personal  friend,  gives 
a  pleasant  glimpse  of  his  domestic  arrangements  jit  this  time. 
"  We  are  not  keeping  house,"  Mr.  Lincoln  says  in  this  letter, 
"but  boarding  at  the  Globe  Tavern,  which  is  very  well  kept 
now  by  a  widow  lady  of  the  name  of  Beck.  Our  rooms  are 
the  same  Dr.  Wallace  occupied  there,  and  boarding  only 
costs  four  dollars  a  week.  *  *  I  most  heartily  wish  you  and 
your  Fanny  will  not  fail  to  come.  Just  let  us  know  the  time, 
a  week  in  advance,  and  we  will  have  a  room  prepared  for  you, 
and  we  '11  all  be  merry  together  for  a  while/'  He  seems  to 
have  been  in  excellent  spirits,  and  to  have  been  very  hearty 
in  the  enjoyment  of  his  new  relation. 

The  private  letters  of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  charmingly  natural 
and  sincere,  and  there  can  be  no  harm  in  giving  a  passage 
from  one  written  during  these  early  years,  as  an  illustration. 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  charged  with  having  no  strong  personal 
attachments ;  but  no  one  can  read  his  private  loiters,  written 
at  any  time  during  his  life,  without  perceiving  that  his  per 
sonal  friendships  were  the  sweetest  sources  of  his  happiness. 
To  a  particular  friend,  he  wrote  February  25th,  1842 :  "  Yoifrs 

of  the  sixteenth,  announcing  that  Miss and  you  '  are  no 

longer  twain  but  one  flesh,'  reached  me  this  morning.  I  have 
no  way  of  telling  you  how  much  happiness  I  wish  you  both, 
though  I  believe  you  both  can  conceive  it.  I  feel  somewhat 


LIFE    OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  91 

jealous  of  both  of  you  now,  for  you  will  be  so  exclusively 
concerned  for  one  another  that  I  shall  be  forgotten  entirely. 

My  acquaintance  with  Miss (I  call  her  thus  lest  you 

should  think  I  am  speaking  of  your  mother,)  was  too  short 
for  me  to  reasonably  hope  to  long  be  remembered  by  her ;  and 
still  I  am  sure  I  shall  not  forget  her  soon.  Try  if  you  can 
not  remind  her  of  that  debt  she  owes  me,  and  be  sure  you  do 
not  interfere  to  prevent  her  paying  it. 

"  I  regret  to  learn  that  you  have  resolved  not  to  return  to 
Illinois.  I  shall  be  very  lonesome  without  you.  How  mis 
erably  things  seem  to  be  arranged  in  this  world !  If  we  have 
no  friends  we  have  no  pleasure  ;  and  if  we  have  them,  we 
are  sure  to  lose  them,  and  be  doubly  pained  by  the  loss.  I 
did  hope  she  and  you  would  make  your  home  here,  yet  I  own 
I  have  no  rio-lit  to  insist.  You  owe  obligations  to  her  ten 

{-I  O 

thousand  times  more  sacred  than  any  you  can  owe  to  others, 
and  in  that  light  let  them  be  respected  and  observed.  It  is 
natural  that  she  should  desire  to  remain  with  her  relations  and 
friends.  As  to  friends,  she  could  not  need  them  anywhere  ; — - 
she  would  have  them  in  abundance  here.  Give  my  kind 

regards  to  Mr. and  his  family,  particularly  to  Miss  E. 

Also  to  your  mother,  brothers  and  sisters.  Ask  little  E. 

D if  she  will  ride  to  town  with  me  if  I  come  there  again. 

And,  finally,  give a  double  reciprocation  of  all  the  love 

she  sent  me.  Write  me  often,  and  believe  me,  yours  forever, 
LINCOLN." 

The  kind  feeling,  the  delicate  playfulness,  the  considerate 
remembrance  of  all  who  were  associated  with  the  recipient  of 
the  missive,  and  the  hearty,  outspoken  affection  which  this 
letter  breathes,  reveal  a  sound  and  true  heart  in  the  writer. 
It  is  true,  indeed,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  friendly  feeling  to 
ward  everybody,  and  it  is  just  as  true  that  his  personal  friend 
ships  were  as  devoted  and  unselfish  as  those  of  a  man  of  more 
exclusive  feelings  and  more  abounding  prejudices. 

Mr.  Lincoln  seems  to  have  been  thinking  about  a  seat  in 

O 

Congress  at  this  time.  On  the  24th  of  March,  1843,  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Speed :  "  We  had  a  meeting  of  the  whigs 


92  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

of  the  county  here  on  last  Monday,  to  appoint  delegates  to  a 
district  convention,  and  Baker*  beat  me,  and  got  the  delega 
tion  instructed  to  go  for  him.  The  meeting,  in  spite  of  my  at 
tempt  to  decline  it,  appointed  me  one  of  the  delegates,  so  that, 
in  getting  Baker  the  nomination,  I  shall  be  '  fixed '  a  good  deal 
like  a  fellow  who  is  made  groomsman  to  the  man  who  has 
'cut  him  out,'  and  is  marrying  his  own  dear  gal." 

In  a  subsequent  letter,  he  writes :  "  In  regard  to  the  Con 
gress  matter  here,  you  were  right  in  supposing  I  would  sup 
port  the  nominee.  Neither  Baker  nor  myself,  however,  will 
be  the  man,  but  Hardin."  f 

It  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  rule  and  habit  to  "  support  the  nomi 
nee."  He  was  always  a  loyal  party  man.  In  the  ordinary 
use  of  the  word,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not,  and  never  became,  a 
reformer.  He  believed  that  a  man,  in  order  to  effect  anything, 
should  work  through  organizations  of  men.  In  a  eulogy 
upon  Henry  Clay  which  he  delivered  in  1852,  occurs  the 
following  passage :  "  A  free  people,  in  times  of  peace  and 
quiet,  when  pressed  by  no  common  danger,  naturally  divide 
into  parties.  At  such  times,  the  man  who  is  not  of  either 
party,  is  not,  cannot  be,  of  any  consequence.  Mr.  Clay, 
therefore,  was  of  a  party."  Whether  his  position  was  sound 
or  otherwise,  he  believed  it  was,  and  always  acted  upon  it. 
With  as  true  a  love  of  freedom  and  progress  as  any  man — 
with  a  regard  for  popular  rights  never  surpassed  by  profes 
sional  reformers — he  was  careful  to  go  no  faster,  and  no  farther, 
than  he  could  take  his  party  with  him,  and  no  faster  and  no 
farther  than  was  consistent  with  that  party's  permanent  suc 
cess.  He  would  endanger  nothing  by  precipitancy.  His  pol 
icy  was  to  advance  surely,  even  if  he  was  obliged  to  proceed 
slowly.  *  The  policy  which  distinguished  his  presidential  ca 
reer  was  the  policy  of  his  life.  It  was  adopted  early,  and  he 
always  followed  it. 

With  Mr.  Lincoln's  modest  estimate  of  his  own  services, 

*  Colonel  Edward  D.  Baker,  (afterwards  United  States  Senator  from 
Oregon,)  who  fell  at  Ball's  Bluff, 
f  Colonel  John  J.  Hardin,  who  fell  at  Buena  Vista. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  93 

and  with  his  friendly  feelings  toward  all,  it  is  not  to  be  won 
dered  at  that  he  never  made  much  money.  It  was  not  possible 
for  him  to  regard  his  clients  simply  in  the  light  of  business. 
An  unfortunate  man  was  a  subject  of  his  sympathy,  no  matter 
what  his  business  relations  to  him  might  be.  A  Mr.  Cogdal, 
who  related  the  incident  to  the  writer,  met  with  a  financial 
wreck  in  1843.  He  employed  Mr.  Lincoln  as  his  lawyer,  and 
at  the  close  of  the  business,  gave  him  a  note  to  cover  the  reg 
ular  lawyer's  fees.  He  was  soon  afterwards  blown  up  by  an 
accidental  discharge  of  powder,  and  lost  his  hand.  Meeting 
Mr.  Lincoln  some  time  after  the  accident,  on  the  steps  of  the 
State  House,  the  kind  lawyer  asked  him  how  he  was  getting 
along.  "Badly  enough,"  replied  Mr.  Cogdal,  "I  am  both 
broken  up  in  business,  and  crippled."  Then  he  added,  "  I  have 
been  thinking  about  that  note  of  yours."  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
had  probably  known  all  about  Mr.  Cogdal's  troubles,  and  had 
prepared  himself  for  the  meeting,  took  out  his  pocket-book,  and 
saying  with  a  laugh,  "  well,  you  needn't  think  any  more  about 
it,"  handed  him  the  note.  Mr.  Cogdal  protesting,  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  "if  you  had  the  money,  I  would  not  take  it,"  and  hurried 
away.  At  this  same  date,  he  was  frankly  writing  about  his 
poverty  to  his  friends,  as  a  reason  for  not  making  them  a  visit, 
and  probably  found  it  no  easy  task  to  take  care  of  his  family, 
even  when  board  at  the  Globe  Tavern  was  "  only  four  dollars 
a  week." 

In  the  active  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his  profession,  in 
the  enjoyments  of  his  new  domestic  life,  and  in  the  intrigues 
of  local  politics,  as  betrayed  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Speed,  the 
months  passed  away,  and  brought  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  great 
political  contest  of  1844.  Henry  Clay,  his  political  idol  was 
the  candidate  of  the  whig  party  for  the  presidency,  and  he 
went  into  the  canvass  with  his  whole  heart.  As  a  candidate 
for  presidential  elector,  he  canvassed  the  state  of  Illinois,  and 
afterwards  went  over  into  Indiana,  and  made  a  series  of 
speeches  there.  The  result  of  this  great  campaign  to  Mr. 
Clay  and  to  the  whig  party  was  a  sad  disappointment.  Proba 
bly  no  defeat  of  a  great  party  ever  brought  to  its  members  so 


94  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

much  personal  sorrow  as  this.  Mr.  Clay  had  the  power  of 
exciting  an  enthusiastic  affection  for  his  person  that  few  politi 
cal  men  have  enjoyed.  The  women  of  the  country  were  as 
much  interested  in  his  election  as  their  brothers  and  husbands 
were,  and  wept  at  his  defeat  as  if  he  had  been  their  best  and 
most  intimate  friend.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  among  the  heartiest 
of  these  mourners ;  but,  while  the  event  rendered  his  great 
political  exemplar  a  hopeless  man  politically,  the  canvass  itself 
had  raised  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  proudest  hight  he  had  occupied. 
He  had  greatly  strengthened  the  whig  organization  in  the 
state,  and  had  established  his  reputation  as  one  of  the  most 
powerful  political  debaters  in  the  country.  His  exposition  of 
the  protective  system  of  duties,  which  was  the  principal 
issue  of  the  canvass,  was  elaborate  and  powerful.  He  had 
thoroughly  mastered  his  subject,  and  his  arguments  are  still 
remembered  for  the  copiousness  of  their  facts,  and  the  close 
ness  and  soundness  of  their  logic. 

Mr.  Clay's  defeat  was  the  more  a  matter  of  sorrow  with 
Mr.  Lincoln  because  it  was,  in  a  measure,  unexpected.  No 
personal  defeat  could  have  been  more  dispiriting  to  him  than 
this  failure  before  the  people  of  his  political  idol.  He  was 
not  only  disappointed  but  disgusted.  With  his  strong  con 
victions  of  the  soundness  of  the  principles  of  the  whig  party, 
and  his  belief  in  the  almost  immeasurable  superiority  of  Mr. 
Clay  over  Mr.  Polk,  he  doubtless  had  the  same  misgivings 
that  have  come  to  others,  touching  the  capacity  of  the  people 
for  self-government,  and  realized  the  same  distrust  of  the 
value  of  honors  which  could  be  so  unworthily  bestowed.  It 
was  to  him  a  popular  decision  in  the  cause  of  political  iniquity 
and  bad  government.  It  was  not  strange,  therefore,  in  the  first 
gush  of  his  disappointment,  that  he  made  a  new  resolution  to 
let  politics  alone,  and  attend  more  devotedly  to  the  duties  of 
his  profession.  But  Mr.  Lincoln's  ambition,  and  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  friends,  more  powerful  than  his  ambition,  were  not 
likely  to  permit  this  resolution  to  have  a  permanent  influence 
upon  his  career. 

Subsequently,  Mr.  Lincoln  paid  a  personal  visit  to  Mr. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  95 

Clay,  and  it  is  possible  that  he  needed  the  influence  of  this 
visit  to  restore  a  healthy  tone  to  his  feelings,  and  to  teach  him 
that  the  person  whom  his  imagination  had  transformed  into  a 
demigod  was  only  a  man,  possessing  the  full  measure  of  weak 
nesses  common  to  men.  In  1846,  Mr.  Lincoln  learned  that 
Mr.  Clay  had  agreed  to  deliver  a  speech  at  Lexington,  Ken 
tucky,  in  favor  of  gradual  emancipation.  He  had  never  seen 
the  great  Kentuckian,  and  this  event  seemed  to  give  him  an 
excuse  for  breaking  away  from  his  business,  and  satisfying  his 
curiosity  to  look  his  demigod  in  the  face,  and  hear  the  music 
of  his  eloquence.  He  accordingly  went  to  Lexington,  and 
arrived  there  in  time  to  attend  the  meeting. 

On  returning  to  his  home  from  this  visit,  he  did  not  attempt 
to  disguise  his  disappointment.  The  speech  itself  was  written 
and  read.  It  lacked  entirely  the  spontaneity  and  fire  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  anticipated,  and  was  not  eloquent  at  all.  At 
the  close  of  the  meeting  Mr.  Lincoln  secured  an  introduction 
to  the  great  orator,  and  as  Mr.  Clay  knew  what  a  friend  to  him 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  been,  he  invited  his  admirer  and  partisan  to 
Ashland.  No  invitation  could  have  delighted  Mr.  Lincoln 
more,  but  the  result  of  his  private  interview  with  Mr.  Clay  was 
no  more  satisfactory  than  that  which  followed  the  speech. 
Those  who  have  known  both  men,  will  not  wonder  at  this,  for 
two  men  could  hardly  be  more  unlike  in  their  motives  and  man 
ners  than  the  two  thus  brought  together.  One  was  a  proud 
man ;  the  other  was  a  humble  man.  One  was  princely  in  his 
bearing;  the  other  was  lowly.  One  was  distant  and  digni 
fied;  the  other  was  as  simple  and  teachable  as  a  child.  One 
received  the  deference  of  men  as  his  due ;  the  other  received 
it  with  an  uncomfortable  sense  of  his  unworthiness. 

A  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  a  long  conversation  with 
him  after  his  return  from  Ashland,  found  that  his  old  enthusi 
asm  was  gone.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  though  Mr.  Clay  was 
most  polished  in  his  manners,  and  very  hospitable,  he  be 
trayed  a  consciousness  of  superiority  that  none  could  mistake. 
He  felt  that  Mr.  Clay  did  not  regard  him,  or  any  other  person 
in  his  presence,  as,  in  any  sense,  on  an  equality  with  him.  In 


96  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

short,  lie  thought  that  Mr.  Clay  was  overbearing  and  domi 
neering,  and  that,  while  he  was  apparently  kind,  it  was  In  that 
magnificent  and  patronizing  way  which  made  a  sensitive  man 
uncomfortable. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Mr.  Lincoln  needed  to  experience 
this  disappointment,  and  to  be  taught  this  lesson.  It  was, 
perhaps,  the  only  instance  in  his  life  in  which  he  had  given 
his  whole  heart  to  a  man  without  knowing  him,  or  been  carried 
away  by  his  imagination  into  an  unbounded  zeal  on  behalf  of 
a  personal  stranger.  It  made  him  more  cautious  in  the  be 
stowal  of  his  love.  He  was,  certainly,  from  that  time  forward, 
more  careful  to  look  on  all  sides  of  a  man,  and  on  all  sides  of 
a  subject,  before  yielding  to  either  his  devotion,  than  ever  be 
fore.  If  he  became  slow  in  moving,  it  was  because  he  saw 
more  than  his  own  side  of  every  case  and  question,  and  recog 
nized,  in  advance,  such  obstacles  as  would  be  certain  to  impede 
his  progress. 

Much  has  been  said  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  kindness,  and  many 
suppose  that  he  was  not  brave — that  his  patient  and  universal 
love  of  men  was  inconsistent  with  those  sterner  qualities  which 
are  necessary  to  make,  not  only  a  true  hero,  but  a  true  man. 
An  incident  occurred  during  the  Clay  campaign  which  shows 
how  ill-founded  this  estimate  of  Mr.  Lincoln  is.  On  the  occa 
sion  of  a  great  mass  convention  at  Springfield,  U.  F.  Linder, 
Esq.,  now  a  resident  of  Chicago,  and  a  man  of  rare  eloquence, 
made  a  speech  which  seemed  to  rouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
assemblage  to  the  highest  pitch.  The  speech  was  very  offen 
sive  to  some  of  the  democrats  who  were  present — who,  indeed, 
proposed  to  make  a  personal  matter  of  it.  Mr.  Linder  being 
called  out  again,  in  the  course  of  the  meeting,  was  considered 
in  personal  danger,  if  he  should  attempt  to  respond.  At  this 
juncture,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Colonel  Baker  took  their  places  by 
his  side,  and,  when  he  finished,  conducted  him  to  his  hotel. 
The  ruffians  knew  both  men,  and  prudently  refrained  from  in 
terfering  with  them.  On  a  previous  occasion,  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  protected  the  person  of  Colonel  Baker  himself.  Baker 
was  speaking  in  a  court-house,  which  had  once  been  a  store- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  97 

house,  and,  on  making  some  remarks  that  were  offensive  to 
certain  political  rowdies  in  the  crowd,  they  cried  :  "  take  him 
oiF  the  stand."  Immediate  confusion  ensued,  and  there  was 
an  attempt  to  carry  the  demand  into  execution.  Directly 
over  the  speaker's  head  was  an  old  scuttle,  at  which  it  ap 
peared  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  listening  to  the  speech.  In  an 
instant,  Mr.  Lincoln's  feet  came  through  the.  scuttle,  followed 
by  his  tall  and  sinewy  frame,  and  he  was  standing  by  Colonel 
Baker's  side.  He  raised  his  hand,  and  the  assembly  subsided 
immediately  into  silence.  "  Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln, 
"  let  us  not  disgrace  the  age  and  country  in  which  we  live. 
This  is  a  land  where  freedom  of  speech  is  guarantied.  Mr. 
Baker  has  a  right  to  speak,  and  ought  to  be  permitted  to  do 
so.  I  am  here  to  protect  him,  and  no  man  shall  take  him 
from  this  stand  if  I  can  prevent  it."  The  suddenness  of  his 
appearance,  his  perfect  calmness  and  fairness,  and  the  knowl 
edge  that  he  would  do  what  he  had  promised  to  do,  quieted 
all  disturbance,  and  the  speaker  concluded  his  remarks  with 
out  difficulty. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  already  been  spoken  of  as  a  strong  party 
man,  and  his  thorough  devotion  to  his  party,  on  some  occa 
sions,  though  very  rarely,  led  him  into  hasty  expressions  and 
hasty  actions,  quite  out  of  harmony  with  his  usual  self-poise 
and  good  nature.  A  scene  occurred  in  the  room  occupied  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  particular  friend,  Judge  Davis,  at  Paris, 
on  one  occasion,  which  illustrates  this.  There  was  present, 
as  a  visitor,  a  young  lawyer  of  the  name  of  Constable,  a  gen 
tleman  of  fine  abilities,  and  at  present  a  judge  of  the  circuit 
court.  Mr.  Constable  was  a  whig,  but  had  probably  been 
disappointed  in  some  of  his  political  aspirations,  and  did  not 
feel  that  the  party  had  treated  him  fairly.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  disparagingly  of  the  policy  of  the  party  in 
the  treatment  of  its  own  friends,  and  particularly  of  its  young 
men,  especially  when  he  found  whig  leaders  to  listen  to  him. 
On  this  occasion  he  charged  the  party  with  being  "old  fogy- 
ish,"  and  indifferent  to  rising  men,  while  the  democratic  party- 
was  lauded  for  the  contrast  which  it  presented  in  this  partic- 
7 


98  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ular.  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  the  charge  as  keenly  as  if  it  had  been 
a  personal  one.  Indeed,  his  own  experience  disproved  the 
whole  statement.  Constable  went  on,  and  charged  the  whig 
party  with  ingratitude  and  neglect  in  his  own  case.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  stood  with  his  coat  off,  shaving  himself  before  his  glass* 
He  had  heard  the  charges  without  saying  a  word,  but  when 
Mr.  Constable  alluded  to  himself,  as  having  been  badly  treated, 
he  turned  fiercely  upon  him,  and  said,  "Mr.  Constable,  I  un 
derstand  you  perfectly,  and  have  noticed  for  some  time  back 
that  you  have  been  slowly  and  cautiously  picking  your  way 
over  to  the  democratic  party."  Both  men  were  angry,  and  it 
required  the  efforts  of  all  the  others  present  to  keep  them  from 
fighting.  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  for  a  time,  as  one  of  the  spec 
tators  of  the  scene  remarks,  to  be  "  terribly  willing."  Such 
instances  as  this  have  been  very  rare  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  life,  and 
the  fact  that  he  was  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  such  motives 
renders  his  notorious  equanimity  of  temper  all  the  more  cred 
itable  to  him.  The  matter  was  adjusted  between  him  and  Mr. 
Constable,  and,  not  long  afterwards,  the  latter  justified  Mr. 
Lincoln's  interpretation  of  his  motives,  and  was  numbered 
among  the  democrats. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  political  biographers  of  Mr.  Lincoln  have  stated  that  in 
1846  he  was  "indiiced  to  accept'*  the  nomination  for  Congress 
from  the  Sangamon  district.  It  has  already  been  seen  that  he 
lad  aspirations  for  this  place ;  and  it  is  quite  as  well  to  adopt 
Mr.  Lincoln's  own  frankness  and  directness,  and  say  that  the 
Representatives  of  his  wishes  secured  the  nomination  for  him. 
As  a  party  man,  he  had  well  earned  any  honor  in  the  power 
of  his  party  to  bestow.  As  a  man  and  a  politician,  his  char 
acter  was  so  sound  and  so  truly  noble  that  his  nomination  and 
election  to  Congress  would  be  quite  as  honorable  to  his  dis 
trict  as  to  him. 

Having  received  the  nomination,  Mr.  Lincoln  did  after  the 
manner  of  Western  nominees  and  "stumped"  his  district. 
He  had  abundant  material  for  discussion.  During  the  winter 
of  1845,  Texas  was  admitted  to  the  Union,  and  the  war  with 
Mexico  was  commenced.  The  tariff  of  1842,  constructed  in 
accordance  with  the  policy  of  the  whig  party,  had  been  re 
pealed.  The  country  had  a  foreign  war  on  its  hands — a  war 
which  the  whigs  believed  to  have  been  unnecessarily  begun, 
and  unjustifiably  carried  on.  It  had  received  into  the  Union  a 
new  member  in  the  interest  of  slavery.  It  had  been  greatly 
disturbed  in  its  industrial  interests  by  the  subversion  of  the 
protective  policy.  The  issues  between  the  two  parties  then  in 
the  political  field  were  positive  and  well  defined.  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  position  on  all  the  principal  points  at  issue  was  that  of 


100  LIFE   OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  whig  party,  and  the  party  had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of 
its  western  champion. 

The  eminent  popularity  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  own  district 
was  shown  by  the  majority  he  received  over  that  which  it  had 
given  to  Mr.  Clay.  Although  he  had  made  Mr.  Clay's  cause 
his  own,  and  had  advocated  his  election  with  an  enthusiasm 
which  no  personal  object  could  have  excited  in  him,  he  re 
ceived  in  his  district  a  majority  of  one  thousand  five  hundred 
and  eleven  votes  to  the  nine  hundred  and  fourteen  majority 
which  the  district  had  given  Mr.  Clay  in  1844.  He  undoubt 
edly  was  supported  by  more  than  the  strength  of  his  party, 
for  his  majority  wras  unprecedented  in  the  district,  and  has 
since  had  no  parallel.  It  was  not  reached,  on  a  much  larger 
vote,  by  General  Taylor  in  1848.  There  is  no  question  that 
this  remarkable  majority  was  the  result  of  the  popular  faith 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's  earnestness,  conscientiousness  and  integrity. 

He  took  his  seat  in  the  thirtieth  Congress,  December  Gth, 
1847,  and  was  from  the  first  entirely  at  home.  He  was  no 
novice  in  politics  or  legislation.  To  the  latter  he  had  served 
a  thorough  apprenticeship  in  the  Illinois  legislature.  To  the 
study  and  discussion  of  the  former,  he  had  devoted  perhaps 
the  severest  efforts  of  his  life.  He  understood  every  phase  of 
the  great  questions  which  agitated  Congress  and  divided  the 
people.  Unlike  many  politicians  who  engage  in  the  harangues 
of  a  political  canvass,  he  had  made  himself  the  master  of  the 
subjects  he  discussed.  He  had  been  a  debater,  and  not  a  de- 
claimer.  He  had  entertained  a  deeper  interest  in  questions  of 
public  concern  than  he  had  felt  in  his  own  election ;  and  he 
was  at  once  recognized  as,  the  peer  of  his  associates  in  the 
House.  He  derived  considerable  prominence  from  the  fact 
that  he  was  the  only  whig  member  from  Illinois,  a  fact  almost 
entirely  due  to  his  own  presence  and  influence  in  the  district 
which  elected  him. 

It  is  noticeable  here  that  Stephen  A.  Douglas  took  his  seat 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  during  this  same  session. 
They  met  first  as  representatives  in  the  Illinois  legislature. 
Mr.  Douglas  was  the  younger,  the  more  adroit,  the  swifter  in 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  101 

a  political  race.  He  had  had  with  him  the  large  democratic 
majority  of  the  state,  and  had  moulded  it  to  his  purposes. 
He  had  taken  a  step — perhaps  many  steps — in  advance  of  Mr. 
Lincoln;  but  it  seemed  destined  that  the  tallest  man  in  the 
House  and  the  shortest  man  in  the  Senate  should  keep  in  sight 
of  each  other,  until  the  time  should  come  when  they  should 
stand  out  before  their  own  state  and  the  country  as  the  cham 
pions  respectively  of  the  antagonistic  principles  and  policies 
which  divided  the  American  people.  * 

It  is  interesting,  at  the  close  of  a  great  rebellion,  undertaken 
on  behalf  of  slavery,  to  look  back  to  this  Congress,  and  see 
how,  in  the  interests  and  associations  of  the  old  whig  party, 
those  men  worked  in  harmony  who  have  since  been,  or  who, 
if  they  had  lived  would  have  been,  so  widely  separated  in 
feeling  and  action.  John  Quincy  Adams  voted  on  most  ques 
tions  with  Robert  Toombs ;  George  Ashmun,  afterwards  pres 
ident  of  the  convention  that  nominated  Mr.  Lincoln  for  the 
presidency,  with  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  afterwards  vice- 
president  of  the  Southern  Confederacy ;  Jacob  Collamer  with 
Thomas  Butler  King,  and  Samuel  F.  Vinton  with  Henry  W. 
Hilliard.  History  must  record  that  the  Mexican  war  was 
undertaken  in  the  interest  of  human  slavery;  yet,  touching 
the  questions  arising  out  of  this  war,  and  questions  directly 
associated  with  or  bearing  upon  it,  these  men  of  the  old  whig 
party  acted  together.  The  slaveholder  then  yielded  to  party 
what  he  has  since  denied  to  patriotism,  and  the  patriot  aban 
doned  a  party  which  held  out  to  him  a  constant  temptation  to 
complicity  with  slavery. 

Mr.  Polk,  at  that  time  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
was  evidently  anxious  to  justify  the  war  which  he  had  com 
menced  against  Mexico,  and  to  vindicate  his  own  action  before 
the  American  people,  if  not  before  his  own  judgment  and  con 
science.  His  messages  to  Congress  were  burdened  with  this 
effort ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  had  hardly  become  wonted  to  his  seat 
when  he  made  an  unsuccessful  effort  to  bring  the  President  to  a 
statement  of  facts,  upon  which  Congress  and  the  country  might 
either  verify  or  falsify  his  broad  and  general  asseverations.  On 


102  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  twenty-second  of  December,  he  introduced  a  series  of  res 
olutions*  which,  had  they  been  adopted,  would  have  jrivcn  the 
President  an  opportunity  to  furnish  the  grounds  of  his  allega 
tions,  and  set  himself  right  before  the  nation.  These  resolu 
tions  are  remarkable  for  their  definite  statement  of  the  points 
actually  at  issue  between  the  administration  and  the  whig 
party ;  but  they  found  no  advocates  among  Mr.  Folk's  friends. 
Laid  over  under  the  rule,  they  were  not  called  up  again  by  Mr. 
Lincoln  himself,  but  tliey  formed  the  thesis  U  a  speech  de 
livered  by  him  on  the  following  twelfth  of  January,  in  which 
he  fully  expressed  his  views  on  the  whole  subject. 

The  opposition  in  this  Congress  were  placed  in  a  very  diffi 
cult  and  perplexing  position.  They  hated  the  war ;  they  be- 

*  WHEREAS,  The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  his  message  of 
May  11, 1846,  has  declared  that  "the  Mexican  Government  not  only  re 
fused  to  receive  him  [the  envoy  of  the  United  States,]  or  listen  to  his 
propositions,  but,  after  a  long  continued  series  of  menaces,  has  at  last 
invaded  our  territory,  and  shed  the  blood  of  our  fellow  citizens  on  our 
own  soil:'" 

And  again,  in  his  message  of  December  8, 1846,  that  "We  had  ample 
cause  of  war  against  Mexico  long  before  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities; 
but  even  then  we  forbore  to  take  redress  into  our  own  hands  until 
Mexico  herself  became  the  aggressor,  by  invading  our  soil  in  hostile 
array,  and  shedding  the  blood  of  our  citizens:'' 

And  yet  again,  in  his  message  of  December  7,  1847,  that  k'The  Mex 
ican  Government  refused  even  to  hear  the  terms  of  adjustment  which 
he  [our  minister  of  peace]  was  authorized  to  propose,  and  finally,  under 
wholly  unjustifiable  pretexts,  involved  the  two  countries  in  war,  by  in 
vading  the  territory  of  the  State  of  Texas,  striking  the  first  blow,  and 
shedding  the  blood  of  our  citizens  on  our  own  soil:"  and, 

WIIEKKAS,  This  House  is  desirous  to  obtain  a  full  knowledge  of  all 
the  facts  which  go  to  establish  whether  the  particular  spot  on  which  the 
blood  of  our  citizens  was  so  shed  was  or  was  not  at  that  time  "  our  own 
soil:"  therefore, 

Rexnhwl  ly  tie  House  of  Representatives,  That  the  President  of  the 
United  States  be  respectfully  requested  to  inform  this  house — 

1st.  Whether  the  spot  on  which  the  blood  of  our  citizens  was  shed, 
as  in  his  messages  declared,  was  or  was  not  within  the  territory  of 
Spain,  at  least  after  the  treaty  of  1819,  until  the  Mexican  revolution. 

2d.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  the  territory  which  was 
wrested  from  Spain  by  the  revolutionary  Government  of  Mexico. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  103 

lieved  it  to  have  been  unnecessarily  begun  by  the  act  of  the 
United  States,  and  not  by  the  act  of  Mexico  ;  they  were 
accused  of  being  treacherous  to  the  cause  and  honor  of  the 
country  because  they  opposed  the  war  in  which  the  country 
was  engaged ;  they  felt  obliged  to  vote  supplies  to  the  army 
because  it  would  have  been  inhuman  to  do  otherwise,  yet 
this  act  was  seized  upon  by  the  President  to  show  that  his 
position  touching  the  war  was  sustained  by  them ;  they  felt 
compelled  to  condemn  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  armies, 
sitting  in  the  AVhite  House,  and  to  vote  thanks  to  the  generals 
who  had  successfully  executed  his  orders  in  the  field.  Men 
picked  their  way  through  these  difficulties  according  to  the 
wisdom  given  to  them.  The  opposition  usually  voted  together, 
though  there  was  more  or  less  of  division  on  minor  points  and 
matters  of  policy. 

3d.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  a  settlement  of  people, 
which  settlement  has  existed  ever  since  long  before  the  Texas  revolu 
tion,  and  until  its  inhabitants  fled  before  the  approach  of  the  United 
States  army. 

4th.  Whether  that  settlement  is  or  is  not  isolated  from  any  and  all 
other  settlements  by  the  Gulf  and  the  Rio  Grande  on  the  south  a~nd  west, 
and  by  wide  uninhabited  regions  on  the  north  and  east. 

5th.  Whether  the  people  of  that  settlement,  or  a  majority  of  them, 
or  any  of  them,  have  ever  submitted  themselves  to  the  government  or 
laws  of  Texas  or  of  the  United  States,  by  consent  or  by  compulsion, 
either  by  accepting  office,  or  voting  at  elections,  or  paying  tax,  or  serv 
ing  on  juries,  or  having  process  served  upon  them,  or  in  any  other  way. 

6th.  Whether  the  people  of  that  settlement  did  or  did  not  flee  from 
the  approach  of  the  United  States  army,  leaving  unprotected  their 
homes  and  their  growing  crops,  before  the  blood  was  shed,  as  in  the  mes 
sages  stated;  and  whether  the  first  blood,  so  shed,  was  or  was  not  shed 
within  the  inclosure  of  one  of  the  people  who  had  thus  fled  from  it. 

7th.  Whether  our  citizens,  whose  blood  was  shed,  as  in  his  messages 
declared,  were  or  were  not,  at  that  time,  armed  officers  and  soldiers, 
sent  into  that  settlement  by  the  military  order  of  the  President,  through 
the  Secretary  of  War. 

8th.  Whether  the  military  force  of  the  United  States  was  or  was 
not  fco  sent  into  that  settlement  after  General  Taylor  had  more  than 
once  intimated  to  the  War  Department  that,  in  his  opinion,  no  such 
movement  was  necessary  to  the  defense  or  protection  of  Texas. 


104  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Hudson  of  Massachusetts  introduced  a  resolution  which 
covered  essentially  the  question  of  abandoning  the  war — of 
restoring  everything  to  the  old  status.  Mr.  Lincoln  voted  to 
lay  this  resolution  on  the  table,  and,  when  it  came  up  for 
adoption,  voted  against  it.  The  writer  finds  no  record  of  the 
reasons  for  these  votes.  Whatever  they  may  have  been,  they 
seemed  good  to  him ;  and  he  took  "pains  a  few  days  afterward 
to  show  that  they  could  not  have  grown  out  of  any  friendship 
to  the  war.  Indeed,  on  the  very  day  which  saw  these  votes 
recorded,  he  had  an  opportunity  to  vote  that  the  war  "  was 
unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  begun  by  the  President 
of  the  United  States,"  in  company  with  nearly  all  the  whig 
members  of  the  House,  southern  no  less  than  northern.  The 
same  men  voted  thanks,  to  General  Taylor  for  his  brilliant 
achievements  in  the  war. 

The  speech  of  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  twelfth  of  January,  in 
committee  of  the  whole  House,  was  thoroughly  characteristic 
of  the  author.  %  Simple,  direct,  exact  in  its  comprehension  of 
the  points  at  issue,  without  a  superfluous  word  or  sentence,  as 
closely  logical  as  if  it  were  the  work  of  a  professor  of  dialec 
tics,  it  was  the  equal  if  not  the  superior  of  any  speech  deliv 
ered  during  the  session. 

Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  as  follows: 

"  MR.  CHAIRMAN  :  r  Some,  if  not  all,  of  the  gentlemen  on  the  other 
Side  of  the  House,  who  have  addressed  the  committee  within  the  last 
two  days,  have  spoken  rather  complainingly,  if  I  have  rightly  under* 
Stood  them,  of  the  vote  given  a  week  or  ten  days  ago,  declaring  that 
the  war  with  Mexico  was  unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  com 
menced  by  the  President.  I  admit  that  such  a  vote  should  not  be  given 
in  mere  party  wantonness,  and  that  the  one  given  is  justly  censurable, 
if  it  have  no  other  or  better  foundation.  I  am  one  of  those  who  joined 
in  that  vote ;  and  did  so  under  my  best  impression  of  the  truth  of  the 
case.  How  I  got  this  impression,  and  how  it  may  possibly  be  removed^ 
I  will  now  try  to  show.  When  the  war  began,  it  was  my  opinion  that 
all  those  who,  because  of  knowing  too  little,  or  because  of  knowing  too 
mucli,  could  not  conscientiously  approve  the  conduct  of  the  President 
(in  the  beginning  of  it),  should,  nevertheless,  as  good  citizens  and  pat 
riots,  remain  silent  on  that  point,  at  least  till  the  war  should  be  ended. 
Some  leading  Democrats,  including  ex-President  Van  Buren,  have  taken 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  105 

this  same  view,  as  I  understand  them ;  and  I  adhered  to  it,  and  acted 
upon  it,  until  since  I  took  my  seat  here ;  and  I  think  I  should  still  ad 
here  to  it,  were  it  not  that  the  President  and  his  friends  will  not  allow 
it  to  be  so.  Besides  the  continual  effort  of  the  President  to  argue 
every  silent  vote  given  for  supplies  into  an  indorsement  of  the  justice 
and  wisdom  of  his  conduct ;  besides  that  singularly  candid  paragraph 
in  his  late  message,  in  which  he  tells  us  that  Congress,  with  great  una 
nimity  (only  two  in  the  Senate  and  fourteen  in  the  House  dissenting) 
had  declared  that '  by  the  act  of  the  Republic  of  Mexico  a  state  of  war 
exists  between  that  Government  and  the  United  States/  when  the 
same  journals  that  informed  him  of  this,  also  informed  him  that,  when 
that  declaration  stood  disconnected  from  the  question  of  supplies,  sixty- 
seven  in  the  House,  and  not  fourteen,  merely,  voted  against  it;  besides 
this  open  attempt  to  prove  by  telling  the  truth,  what  he  could  not  prove 
by  telling  the  whole  truth,  demanding  of  all  who  will  not  submit  to  be 
misrepresented,  in  justice  to  themselves,  to  speak  out ;  besides  all  this, 
one  of  my  colleagues  [Mr.  Richardson],  at  a  very  early  day  in  the  ses 
sion,  brought  in  a  set  of  resolutions,  expressly  indorsing  the  original 
justice  of  the  war  on  the  part  of  the  President.  Upon  these  resolu 
tions,  when  they  shall  be  put  on  their  passage,  I  shall  be  compelled  to 
vote  ;  so  that  I  can  not  be  silent  if  I  would.  Seeing  this,  I  went  about 
preparing  myself  to  give  the  vote  understandingly,  when  it  should  come. 
I  carefully  examined  the  President's  messages,  to  ascertain  what  he 
himself  had  said  and  proved  upon  the  point.  The  result  of  this  examin 
ation  was  to  make  the  impression,  that,  taking  for  true  all  the  Presi 
dent  states  as  facts,  he  falls  far  short  of  proving  his  justification ;  and 
that  the  President  would  have  gone  further  with  his  proof,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  small  matter  that  the  truth  would  not  permit  him.  Under 
the  impression  thus  made  I  gave  the  vote  before  mentioned.  I  propose 
now  to  give,  concisely,  the  process  of  the  examination  I  made,  and  how 
I  reached  the  conclusion  I  did. 

"The  President,  in  his  first  message  of  May,  1846,  declares  that  the 
soil  was  ours  on  which  hostilities  were  commenced  by  Mexico ;  and  he 
repeats  that  declaration,  almost  in  the  same  language,  in  each  successive 
annual  message — thus  showing  that  he  esteems  that  point  a  highly 
essential  one.  In  the  importance  of  that  point  I  entirely  agree  with 
the  President.  To  my  judgment,  it  is  the  very  point  upon  which  he 
should  be  justified  or  condemned.  In  his  message  of  December,  1846, 
it  seems  to  have  occurred  to  him,  as  is  certainly  true,  that  title,  owner 
ship  to  soil,  or  anything  else,  is  not  a  simple  fact,  but  is  a  conclusion 
following  one  or  more  simple  facts ;  and  that  it  was  incumbent  upon 
him  to  present  the  facts  from  which  he  concluded  the  soil  was  ours  on, 
which  the  first  blood  of  the  war  was  shed. 

"  Accordingly,  a  little  below  the  middle  of  page  twelve,  in  the  mes- 


106  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

sage  last  referred  to,  he  enters  upon  that  task ;  forming  an  issue  an<J 
introducing  testimony,  extending  the  whole  to  a  little  below  the  middle 
of  page  fourteen.  Now,  I  propose  to  try  to  show  that  the  whole  of 
this — issue  and  evidence — is,  from  beginning  to  end,  the  sheerest  decep 
tion.  The  issue,  as  he  presents  it,  is  in  these  words :  '  But  there  are 
those  who,  conceding  all  this  to  be  true,  assume  the  ground  that  the 
true  western  boundary  of  Texas  is  the  Nueces,  instead  of  the  Rio 
Grande ;  and  that,  therefore,  in  marching  our  army  to  the  east  bank  of 
the  latter  river,  we  passed  the  Texan  line,  and  invaded  the  territory  of 
Mexico.'  Now,  this  issue  is  made  up  of  two  affirmatives  and  no  nega 
tive.  The  main  deceptfon  of  it  is,  that  it  assumes  as  true  that  one  river 
or  the  other  is  necessarily  the  boundary,  and  cheats  the  superficial 
thinker  entirely  out  of  the  idea  that  possibly  the  boundary  is  somewhere 
between  the  two,  and  not  actually  at  either.  A  further  deception  is,  that 
it  will  let  in  evidence  which  a  true  issue  would  exclude.  A  true  issue, 
made  by  the  President,  would  be  about  as  follows;  'I  say  the  soil  was 
ours  on  which  the  first  blood  was  shed;  there  are  those  who  say  it 
was  not.' 

"  I  now  proceed  to  examine  the  President's  evidence,  as  applicable  to 
such  an  issue.  When  that  evidence  is  analyzed,  it  is  all  included  in  the 
following  propositions: 

"  1.  That  the  Rio  Grande  was  the  western  boundary  of  Louisiana, 
as  we  purchased  it  of  France  in  1803. 

"2.  That  the  Republic  of  Texas  always  claimed  the  Rio  Grande  as 
her  western  boundary. 

"3.     That  by  various  acts,  she  had  claimed  it  on  paper, 

"4.  That  Santa  Anna,  in  his  treaty  with  Texas,  recognized  the  Rio 
Grande  as  her  boundary. 

"5.  That  Texas  before,  and  the  United  States  after,  annexation,  had 
exercised  jurisdiction  beyond  the  Nueces,  between  the  two  rivers. 

"  C.  That  our  Congress  understood  the  boundary  of  Texas  to  extend 
beyond  the  Nueces. 

"Now  for  each  of  these  in  its  turn: 

"His  first  item  is,  that  the  Rio  Grande  was  the  western  boundary 
of  Louisiana,  as  we  purchased  it  of  France  in  1803;  and,  seeming  to 
expect  this  to  be  disputed,  he  argues  ever  the  amount  of  nearly  a  page 
to  prove  it  true;  at  the  end  of  which,  he  lets  us  know  that,  by  the 
treaty  of  1819,  we  sold  to  Spain  the  whole  country,  from  the  Rio 
Grande  eastward  to  the  Sabine.  Now,  admitting  for  the  present,  that 
the  Rio  Grande  was  the  boundary  of  Louisiana,  what,  under  heaven, 
had  that  to  do  with  the  present  boundary  between  us  and  Mexico? 
How,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  line  that  once  divided  your  land  from  mino 
can  still  be  the  boundary  between  us  after  I  have  sold  my  land  to  you, 
is,  to  me,  beyond  all  comprehension.  And  how  any  man,  with  an  honest 


LIFE    OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  10T 

purpose  only  of  proving  the  truth,  could  ever  have  thought  of  intro 
ducing  such  a  fact  to  prove  such  an  issue,  is  equally  incomprehensible. 
The  outrage  upon  common  right,  of  seizing  as  our  own  what  we  have 
once  sold,  merely  because  it  was  ours  before  we  sold  it,  is  only  equaled 
by  the  outrage  on  common  sense  of  any  attempt  to  justify  it. 

"  The  President's  next  piece  of  evidence  is,  that  *  The  Republic  of 
Texas  always  claimed  this  river  (Rio  Grande)  as  her  western  boundary/ 
That  is  not  true,  in  fact.  Texas  has  claimed  it,  but  she  has  not  always 
claimed  it.  There  is,  at  least,  one  distinguished  exception.  Her  State 
Constitution — the  public's  most  solemn  and  well-considered  act — that 
which  may,  without  impropriety,  be  called  her  last  will  and  testament, 
revoking  all  others — makes  no  such  claim.  But  suppose  she  had  always 
claimed  it.  Has  not  Mexico  always  claimed  the  contrary?  So  that 
there  is  bi.b  claim  against  claim,  leaving  nothing  proved  until  we  get 
back  of  the  claims,  and  find  which  has  the  better  foundation. 

"  Though  not  in  the  order  in  which  the  President  presents  his  evi 
dence,  I  now  consider  that  class  of  his  statements,  which  are,  in  sub 
stance,  nothing  more  than  that  Texas  has  by  various  acts  of  her  Con 
vention  and  Congress,  claimed  the  Rio  Grande  as  her  boundary — on 
paper.  I  mean  here  what  he  says  about  the  fixing  of  the  Rio  Grande 
as  her  boundary,  in  her  old  Constitution  (not  her  State  Constitution,) 
about  forming  congressional  districts,  counties,  etc.  Now,  all  this  is  but 
naked  claim;  and  what  I  have  already  said  about  claims  is  strictly  ap 
plicable  to  this.  If  I  should  claim  your  land  by  word  of  mouth,  that 
certainly  would  not  make  it  mine ;  and  if  I  were  to  claim  it  by  a  deed 
which  I  had  made  myself,  and  with  which  you  had  nothing  to  do,  the 
claim  would  be  quite  the  same  in  substance,  or  rather  in  utter  noth 
ingness. 

"  I  next  consider  the  President's  statement  that  Santa  Anna,  in  his 
treaty  with  Texas,  recognized  the  Rio  Grande  as  the  western  boundary 
of  Texas.  Besides  the  position  so  often  taken  that  Santa  Anna,  while 
a  prisoner  of  war — a  captive — could  not  bind  Mexico  by  a  treaty,  which 
I  deem  conclusive ;  besides  this,  I  wish  to  say  something  in  relation  to 
this  treaty,  so  called  by  the  President,  with  Santa  Anna.  If  any  man 
would  like  to  be  amused  by  a  sight  at  that  little  thing,  which  the  Presi 
dent  calls  by  that  big  name,  he  can  have  it  by  turning  to  Niles'  Register, 
volume  50,  page  336.  And  if  any  one  should  suppose  that  Niles'  Reg 
ister  is  a  curious  repository  of  so  mighty  a  document  as  a  solemn  treaty 
between  nations,  I  can  only  say  that  I  learned,  to  a  tolerable  degree  of 
certainty,  by  inquiry  at  the  State  Department,  that  the  President  him 
self  never  saw  it  anywhere  else.  By  the  way,  I  believe  I  should  not 
err  if  I  were  to  declare,  that  during  the  first  ten  years  of  the  existence 
of  that  document,  it  was  never  by  anybody  called  a  treaty;  that  it  was 
never  so  called  till  the  President,  in  his  extremity,  attempted,  by  so 


108  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

calling  it,  to  wring  something  from  it  in  justification  of  himseif  in  con 
nection  with  the  Mexican  war.  It  has  none  of  the  distinguishing  fea 
tures  of  a  treaty.  It  does  not  call  itself  a  treaty.  Santa  Anna  does 
not  therein  assume  to  bind  Mexico ;  he  assumes  only  to  act  as  President, 
Commander-in-chief  of  the  Mexican  army  and  navy;  stipulates  that  the 
then  present  hostilities  should  cease,  and  that  he  would  not  himself  take 
up  arms,  nor  influence  the  Mexican  people  to  take  up  arms  against  Texas, 
during  the  existence  of  the  war  of  independence.  He  did  not  recognize 
the  independence  of  Texas;  he  did  not  assume  to  put  an  end  to  the  war, 
but  clearly  indicated  his  expectation  of  its  continuance ;  he  did  not  say 
one  word  about  boundary,  and  most  probably  never  thought  of  it.  It 
is  stipulated  therein  that  the  Mexican  forces  should  evacuate  the  terri 
tory  of  Texas,  passing  to  the  other  side  of  the  Rio  Grande:  and  in  another 
article  it  is  stipulated,  that  to  prevent  collisions  between  the  armies, 
the  Texan  army  should  not  approach  nearer  than  within  five  leagues 
— of  what  is  not  said — but  clearly,  from  the  object  stated,  it  is  of  the 
Rio  Grande.  Now,  if  this  is  a  treaty  recognizing  the  Rio  Grande  as  the 
boundary  of  Texas,  it  contains  the  singular  feature  of  stipulating  that 
Texas  shall  not  go  within  five  leagues  of  her  own  boundary. 

"Next  comes  the  evidence  of  Texas  before  annexation,  and  the 
United  States  afterward,  exercising  jurisdiction  beyond  the  Nueces,  and 
between  the  two  rivers.  This  actual  exercise  of  jurisdiction  is  the  very 
class  or  quality  of  evidence  we  want.  It  is  excellent  so  far  as  it  goes; 
but  does  it  go  far  enough  ?  He  tells  us  it  went  beyond  the  Nueces,  but 
he  does  not  tell  us  it  went  to  the  Rio  Grande.  He  tells  us  jurisdiction 
was  exercised  between  the  two  rivers,  but  he  does  not  tell  us  it  was  ex 
ercised  over  all  the  territory  between  them.  Some  simple-minded  peo 
ple  think  it  possible  to  cross  one  river  and  go  beyond  it,  without  going 
all  the  way  to  the  next ;  that  jurisdiction  may  be  exercised  between  two 
rivers  without  covering  all  the  country  between  them.  I  know  a  man, 
not  very  unlike  myself,  who  exercises  jurisdiction  over  a  piece  of  land 
between  the  Wabash  and  the  Mississippi ;  and  yet  so  far  is  this  from 
being  all  there  is  between  those  rivers,  that  it  is  just  one  hundred  and 
fifty-two  feet  long  by  fifty  wide,  and  no  part  of  it  much  within  a  hund 
red  miles  of  either.  He  has  a  neighbor  between  him  and  the  Missis 
sippi — that  is,  JHst  across  the  street,  in  that  direction — whom,  I  am  sure, 
&e  could  neither  persuade  nor  force  to  give  up  his  habitation;  but  which, 
jievertheless,  he  could  certainly  annex,  if  it  were  to  be  done,  by  merely 
standing  on  his  own  side  of  the  street  and  claiming  it,  or  even  sitting 
down  and  writing  a  deed  for  it. 

"  But  next,  the  President  tells  us,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
understood  the  State  of  Texas  they  admitted  into  the  Union  to  extend 
beyond  the  Nueces.  Well,  I  suppose  they  did — I  certainly  so  understand 
it — but  how  far  beyond  V  That  Congress  did  not  understand  it  to  ex- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  109 

tend  clear  to  the  Rio  Grande,  is  quite  certain  by  the  fact  of  their  joint 
resolutions  for  admission  expressly  leaving  all  questions  of  boundary  to 
future  adjustment.  And,  it  may  be  added,  that  Texas  herself  is  proved 
to  have  had  the  same  understanding  of  it  that  our  Congress  had,  by  the 
fact  of  the  exact  conformity  of  her  new  Constitution  to  those  resolu 
tions. 

"  I  am  now  through  the  whole  of  the  President's  evidence ;  and  it  is 
a  singular  fact,  that  if  any  one  should  declare  the  President  sent  the 
army  into  the  midst  of  a  settlement  of  Mexican  people,  who  had  never 
submitted,  by  consent  or  by  force  to  the  authority  of  Texas  or  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  there,  and  (Jiereby,  the  first  blood  of  the  war  was 
shed,  there  is  not  one  word  in  all  the  President  has  said  which  would 
either  admit  or  deny  the  declaration.  In  this  strange  omission  chiefly 
consists  the  deception  of  the  President's  evidence — an  omission  which, 
it  does  seem  to  me,  could  scarcely  have  occurred  but  by  design.  My 
way  of  living  leads  me  to  be  about  the  courts  of  justice ;  and  there  I 
have  some  times  seen  a  good  lawyer,  struggling  for  his  client's  neck,  in  a 
desperate  case,  employing  every  artifice  to  work  round,  befog,  and  cover 
up  with  many  words  some  position  pressed  upon  him  by  the  prosecution, 
which  he  dared  not  admit,  and  yet  could  not  deny.  Party  bias  may  help 
to  make  it  appear  so;  but,  with  all  the  allowance  I  can  make  for  such 
bias,  it  still  does  appear  to  me  that  just  such,  and  from  just  such  neces 
sity,  are  the  President's  struggles  In  this  case. 

"  Some  time  after  my  colleague  (Mr.  Richardson)  introduced  the 
resolutions  I  have  mentioned,  I  introduced  a  preamble,  resolution,  and 
interrogatories,  intended  to  draw  the  President  out,  if  possible,  on  this 
hitherto  untrodden  ground.  To  show  their  relevancy,  I  propose  to  state 
my  understanding  of  the  true  rule  for  ascertaining  the  boundary  be 
tween  Texas  and  Mexico.  It  is,  that  whfrevff  Texas  was  excrctying  ju 
risdiction  was  hers ;  and  wherever  Mexico  was  exercising  jurisdiction 
was  hers ;  and  that  whatever  separated  the  actual  exercise  of  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  one  from  that  of  the  other,  was  the  true  boundary  between 
them.  If,  as  is  probably  true,  Texas  was  exercising  jurisdiction  along 
the  western  bank  of  the  Nueces,  and  Mexico  was  exercising  it  along 
the  eastern  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande,  then  neither  river  was  the  boundary, 
but  the  uninhabited  country  between  the  two  was.  The  extent  of  our 
territory  in  that  region  depended  not  on  any  treaty-fixed  boundary  (for 
no  treaty  had  attempted  it),  but  on  revolution.  Any  people  anywhere, 
being  inclined  and  having  the  power,  have  the  riylit  to  rise  up  and  shake 
off  the  existing  government,  and  form  a  new  one  that  suits  them  better. 
This  is  a  most  valuable,  a  most  sacred  right — a  right  which,  we  hope 
and  believe,  is  to  liberate  the  world.  Nor  is  this  right  confined  to  cases 
in  which  the  whole  people  of  an  existing  government  may  choose  to 
exercise  it.  Any  portion  of  such  people  that  can  may  revolutionize, 


110  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN". 

and  make  their  own  of  so  much  of  the  territory  as  they  inhabit.  More 
than  this,  a  majority  of  any  portion  of  such  people  may  revolutionize, 
putting  down  a  minority,  intermingled  with,  or  near  about  them,  who 
may  oppose  their  movements.  Such  minority  was  precisely  the  case  of 
the  Tories  of  our  own  Revolution.  It  is  a  quality  of  revolutions  not  to 
go  by  old  lines,  or  old  laws ,  but  to  break  up  both,  and  make  new  ones. 
As  to  the  country  now  in  question,  we  bought  it  of  France  in  1803,  and 
sold  it  to  Spain  in  1819,  according  to  the  President's  statement.  After 
this,  all  Mexico,  including  Texas,  revolutionized  against  Spain;  and  still 
later,  Texas  revolutionized  against  Mexico.  Jn  my  view,  just  so  far  as 
she  carried  her  revolution,  by  obtaining  the  actual,  willing  or  unwilling 
submission  of  the  people,  so  far  the  country  was  hers,  and  no  further. 

"  Now,  sir,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  very  best  evidence  as  to 
whether  Texas  had  actually  carried  her  revolution  to  the  place  where 
the  hostilities  of  the  present  war  commenced,  let  the  President  answer 
the  interrogatories  I  proposed,  as  before  mentioned,  or  some  other  simi 
lar  ones.  Let  him  answer  fully,  fairly  and  candidly.  Let  him  answer 
with  facts,  and  not  with  arguments.  Let  him  remember  he  sits  where 
Washington  sat ;  and,  so  remembering,  let  him  answer  as  Washington 
would  answer.  As  a  nation  should  not,  and  the  Almighty  will  not,  be 
evaded,  so  let  him  attempt  no  evasion,  no  equivocation.  And  if,  so  an 
swering,  he  can  show  that  the  soil  was  ours  where  the  first  blood  of  the 
war  was  shed — that  it  was  not  within  an  inhabited  country,  or,  if  within 
such,  that  the  inhabitants  had  submitted  themselves  to  the  civil  author 
ity  of  Texas,  or  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  same  is  true  of  the 
site  of  Fort  Brown — then  1  am  with  him  for  his  justification.  In  that 
case,  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  reverse  the  vote  I  gave  the  other  day.  I 
have  a  selfish  motive  for  desiring  that  the  President  may  do  this ;  I  ex 
pect  to  give  some  votes,  in  connection  with  the  war,  which,  without  his 
so  doing,  will  be  of  doubtful  propriety,  in  my  own  judgment,  but  which 
will  be  free  from  the  doubt,  if  he  does  so.  But  if  he  can  not  or  will  not 
do  this — if,  on  any  pretense,  or  no  pretense,  he  shall  refuse  or  omit  it — 
then  I  shall  be  fully  convinced,  of  what  I  more  than  suspect  already, 
that  he  is  deeply  conscious  of  being  in  the  wrong ;  that  he  feels  the 
blood  of  this  war,  like  the  blood  of  Abel,  is  crying  to  heaven  against 
him  ;  that  he  ordered  General  Taylor  into  the  midst  of  a  peaceful  Mexi 
can  settlement,  purposely  to  bring  on  a  war;  that  originally  having  some 
strong  motive — what  I  will  not  stop  now  to  give  my  opinion  concern 
ing — to  involve  the  two  countries  in  a  war,  and  trusting  to  escape 
scrutiny  by  fixing  the  public  gaze  upon  the  exceeding  brightness  of 
military  glory — that  attractive  rainbow  that  rises  in  showers  of  blood — 
that  serpent's  eye  that  charms  to  destroy — he  plunged  into  it,  and  has 
swept  on  and  on,  till,  disappointed  in  his  calculation  of  the  ease  with 
•whjct  Mexico  might  ba  subdued,  ha  now  finds  himself  he  knows  not 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  Ill 

where.  How  like  the  half  insane  mumbling  of  a  fever  dream  is  the 
whole  war  part  of  the  late  message  !  At  one  time  telling  us  that  Mexico 
has  nothing  whatever  that  we  can  get  but  territory;  at  another,  show 
ing  us  how  we  can  support  the  war  by  levying  contributions  on  Mexico. 
At  one  time  urging  the  national  honor,  the  security  of  the-  future,  the 
prevention  of  foreign  interference,  and  even  the  good  of  Mexico  herself, 
as  among  the  objects  of  the  war ;  at  another,  telling  us  that,  *  to  reject 
indemnity  by  refusing  to  accept  a  cession  of  territory,  would  be  to 
abandon  all  our  just  demands,  and  to  wage  the  war,  bearing  all  its  ex 
penses,  without  a  purpose  or  definite  object'  So,  then,  the  national  honor, 
security  of  the  future,  and  everything  but  territorial  indemnity,  may  be 
considered  the  no  purposes  and  indefinite  objects  of  the  war !  But  hav 
ing  it  now  settled  that  territorial  indemnity  is  the  only  object,  we  are 
urged  to  seize,  by  legislation  here,  all  that  he  was  content  to  take  a  few 
months  ago,  and  the  whole  province  of  Lower  California  to  boot,  and 
to  still  carry  on  the  war — to  take  all  we  are  fighting  for,  and  still  fight 
on.  Again,  the  President  is  resolved,  under  all  circumstances,  to  have 
full  territorial  indemnity  for  the  expenses  of  the  war ;  but  he  forgets  to 
tell  us  how  we  are  to  get  the  excess  after  those  expenses  shall  have  sur 
passed  the  value  of  the  whole  of  the  Mexican  territory.  So,  again,  he 
insists  that  the  separate  national  existence  of  Mexico  shall  be  main 
tained  ;  but  he  does  not  tell  us  how  this  can  be  done  after  we  shall  have 
taken  all  her  territory.  Lest  the  questions  I  here  suggest  be  considered 
speculative  merely,  let  me  be  indulged  a  moment  in  trying  to  show  they 
are  not. 

"The  war  has  gone  on  some  twenty  months,  for  the  expenses  of 
which,  together  with  an  inconsiderable  old  score,  the  President  now 
claims  about  one  half  of  the  Mexican  territory,  and  that  by  far  the 
better  half,  so  far  as  concerns  our  ability  to  make  anything  out  of  it. 
It  is  comparatively  uninhabited;  so  that  we  could  establish  land  offices 
in  it,  and  raise  some  money  in  that  way.  But  the  other  half  is  already 
inhabited,  as  I  understand  it,  tolerably  densely  for  the  nature  of  the 
country ;  and  all  its  lands,  or  all  that  are  valuable,  already  appropriated 
as  private  property.  How,  then,  are  we  to  make  anything  out  of  these 
lands  with  this  incumbrance  on  them,  or  how  remove  the  incumbrance  ? 
I  suppose  no  one  will  say  we  should  kill  the  people,  or  drive  them 
out,  or  make  slaves  of  them,  or  even  confiscate  their  property?  How, 
then,  can  we  make  much  out  of  this  part  of  the  territory?  If  the 
prosecution  of  the  war  has,  in  expenses,  already  equaled  the  better  half 
of  the  country,  how  long  its  future  prosecution  will  be  in  equaling  the 
less  valuable  half  is  not  a  speculative  but  a  practical  question,  pressing 
closely  upon  us ;  and  yet  it  is  a  question  which  the  President  seems 
never  to  have  thought  of. 

"As  to  the  mode  of  terminating  the  war  and  securing  peace,  the 


112  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

President  is  equally  wandering  and  indefinite.  First,  it  is  to  be  done 
by  a  more  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  in  the  vital  parts  of  the  en 
emy's  country ;  and,  after  apparently  talking  himself  tired  on  this  point, 
the  President  drops  down  into  a  half  despairing  tone,  and  tells  us,  that 
<  with  a  people  distracted  and  divided  by  contending  factions,  and  a 
government  subject  to  constant  changes,  by  successive  revolutions,  the 
continued  success  of  our  arms  may  fail  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  peace? 
Then  he  suggests  the  propriety  of  wheedling  the  Mexican  people  to 
desert  the  counsels  of  their  own  leaders,  and,  trusting  in  our  protection, 
to  set  up  a  government  from  which  we  can  secure  a  satisfactory  peace, 
telling  us  that  ''this  may  become  the  only  mode  of  obtaining  such  a  peace.' 
But  soon  he  falls  into  doubt  of  this  too,  and  then  drops  back  on  to  the 
already  half-abandoned  ground  of  'more  vigorous  prosecution.'  All 
this  shows  that  the  President  is  in  no  wise  satisfied  with  his  own  po 
sitions.  First,  he  takes  up  one,  and,  in  attempting  to  argue  us  into  it, 
he  argues  himself  out  of  it;  then  seizes  another,  and  goes  through  the 
same  process;  and  then,  confused  at  being  able  to  think  of  nothing  new, 
he  snatches  up  the  old  one  again,  which  he  has  some  time  before  cast 
off.  His  mind,  tasked  beyond  its  power,  is  running  hither  and  thither, 
like  some  tortured  creature  on  a  burning  surface,  finding  no  position  on 
which  it  can  settle  down  and  be  at  ease. 

"  Again,  it  is  a  singular  omission  in  this  message,  that  it  nowhere  in 
timates  when  the  President  expects  the  war  to  terminate.  At  its  begin 
ning,  General  Scott  was,  by  this  same  President,  driven  into  disfavor, 
if  not  disgrace,  for  intimating  that  peace  could  not  be  conquered  in  less 
than  three  or  four  months.  But  now  at  the  end  of  about  twenty 
months,  during  which  time  our  arms  have  given  us  the  most  splendid 
successes — every  department,  and  every  part,  land  and  water,  officers 
and  privates,  regulars  and  volunteers,  doing  all  that  men  could  do,  and 
hundreds  of  things  which  it  had  ever  before  been  thought  that  men 
could  nut  do:  after  all  this,  this  same  President  gives  us  a  long  message 
without  showing  us  that,  as  to  (lie,  end,  he  has  himself  even  an  imaginary 
conception.  As  I  have  before  said,  he  knows  not  where  he  is.  He  is  a 
bewildered,  confounded,  and  miserably-perplexed  man.  God  grant  he 
may  be  able  to  show  that  there  is  not  something  about  his  conscience 
more  painful  than  all  his  mental  perplexity." 

With  this  speech  on  record,  it  is  strange  that  the  genuine 
literary  abilities  of  the  man  were  so  long  and  so  persistently 
ignored  by  literary  people.  There  were  men  who  voted  for 
him  for  the  presidency  more  than  twelve  years  afterwards — 
twelve  years  of  culture  and  development  to  him — who  were 
surprised  to  find  his  messages  grammatically  constructed,  and 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  113 

who  suspected  the  intervention  of  a  secretary  whenever  any 
touch  of  elegance  appeared  in  his  writings. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  position  on  the  Committee  on  Post-offices 
and  Post-roads,  and,  from  the  knowledge  in  his  possession,  felt 
called  upon  a  few  days  previous  to  the  speech  on  the  war  to 
expose  a  difficulty  between  the  Postmaster-general  and  a 
transportation  company,  anxious  to  get  the  "  Great  Southern 
Mail"  contract,  and  to  get  a  better  contract  than  the  depart 
ment  had  offered.  The  matter  had  excited  some  interest  in 
Congress,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  showed  a  faithful  study  of  the 
facts  of  the  case  in  his  speech  and  his  freedom  from  any  party 
feeling  in  the  matter,  by  supporting  the  position  of  the  Post 
master-general  . 

On  the  1st  of  June,  1848,  the  National  Whig  Convention 
met  at  Philadelphia  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  among  its  members.  Mr.  Polk,  by  his 
war  with  Mexico,  had  been  engaged,  much  against  his  incli 
nations,  in  manufacturing  available  if  not  able  candidates  for 
his  own  place,  two  of  whom  afterwards  achieved  it.  General 
Taylor  had  become  a  hero.  The  brilliancy  of  his  victories 
and  the  modesty  of  his  dispatches  had  awakened  in  his  behalf 
the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  American  people,  without 
distinction  of  party.  He  wras  claimed  by  the  whigs  as  a 
member  of  that  party,  and  regarded  by  them  as  the  one  man 
in  the  Union  by  whose  popularity  they  might  hope  to  win  the 
power  they  coveted.  The  majority  would  doubtless  have  pre 
ferred  Mr.  Clay,  but  Mr.  Clay  had  been  their  candidate,  and 
had  been  beaten.  Mr.  Lincoln  Avould  have  been  glad  to  sup 
port  Mr.  Clay,  it  is  not  doubted,  but  he  shared  in  the  feeling 
of  the  majority  concerning  his  "  availability."  It  is  possible  that 
his  visit  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  its  unsatisfactory  results,  already 
alluded  to,  had  somewhat  blunted  his  devotion  and  subdued 
his  enthusiasm  on  behalf  of  the  great  chieftain.  Certain  it  is 
that  he  was  among  those  who  believed  that  General  Taylor 
and  not  Mr.  Clay  should  be  the  nominee  of  his  party. 

Congress  had  continued  its  session  into  the  summer,  either 
for  purposes  of  business,  or  with  the  design  to  control  the 
8 


114  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

nominating  conventions,  and  do  something  to  direct  the  cam 
paign  ;  and  when  the  nominations  were  made  it  did  according 
to  its  custom,  and  immediately  commenced  the  campaign  in  a 
series  of  speeches.  About  two  months  after  General  Taylor 
was  nominated,  (July  twenty-seventh,)  Mr.  Lincoln  secured 
the  floor,  and  made  a  speech  concerning  the  points  at  issue 
between  the  two  parties,  and  the  merits  of  the  respective 
candidates,  General  Cass  having  received  the  nomination  of 
the  democratic  party.  It  was  a  telling,  trenchant  talk,  rather 
than  a  speech — more  like  one  of  his  stump  orations  in  Illinois 
than  like  his  previous  efforts  in  the  House.  As  a  campaign 
harangue,  touching  the  salient  features  of  the  principal  ques 
tions  in  debate,  and  revealing  the  weak  points  of  one  candidate 
and  the  strong  points  of  the  other,  it  could  not  have  been  im 
proved.  Considered  as  a  part  of  the  business  which  he  was 
sent  to  Washington  to  perform,  it  was  execrable.  He  did 
what  others  did,  and  what  his  partisan  supporters  expected 
him  to  do  ,•  but  his  own  sense  of  propriety  must  have  suggest 
ed  to  him,  or  ought  to  have  suggested  to  him  if  it  did  not, 
the  indecency  of  the  practice  of  president-making  in  Congress. 
In  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  the  speech  contains  some 
passages  that  are  very  curious  and  suggestive.  In  revealing 
the  position  and  policy  of  General  Taylor  in  1848,  he  was 
unconsciously  marking  out  his  own  in  1860  and  1864.  Gen 
eral  Taylor,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Allison,  had  said,  "upon  the 
subject  of  the  tariff,  the  currency,  the  improvement  of  our 
great  highways,  rivers,  lakes  and  harbors,  the  will  of  the 
people,  as  expressed  through  their  representatives  in  Congress, 
ought  to  be  respected  and  carried  out  by  the  executive." 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  remarking  upon  this,  said:  "The  people  say- 
to  General  Taylor, '  if  you  are  elected,  shall  wre  have  a  national 
bank  ? '  He  answers,  '  Your  will,  gentlemen,  not  mine.' 
4  What  about  the  tariff? '  '  Say  yourselves/  « Shall  our  riv 
ers  and  harbors  be  improved?'  '-Just  as  you  please.  If  yon 
desire  a  bank,  an  alteration  of  the  tariff,  internal  improve 
ments,  any  or  all,  I  will  not  hinder  you;  if  you  do  not  desire 
them,  I  will  not  attempt  to  force  them  on  you.  Send  up  your 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  115 

members  of  Congress  from  the  various  districts,  with  opinions 
according  to  your  own,  and  if  they  are  for  these  measures,  or 
any  of  them,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  oppose;  if  they  are  not 
for  them,  I  shall  not,  by  any  appliances  whatever,  attempt  to 
dragoon  them  into  their  adoption.'"  From  this  point  Mr. 
Lincoln  went  on  to  show  in  what  respect  a  president  is  a 
representative  of  the  people.  He  said:  "In  a  certain  sense, 
and  to  a  certain  extent,  he  is  a  representative  of  the  people. 
He  is  elected  by  them  as  Congress  is.  But  can  he,  in  the  na 
ture  of  things,  know  the  wants  of  the  people  as  well  as  three 
hundred  other  men  coming  from  all  the  various  localities  of  the 
nation?  If  so,  where  is  the  propriety  of  having  a  Congress?" 

There  is  much  in  this  exposition  of  General  Taylor's  posi 
tion  to  remind  us  of  that  upon  which  the  speaker  himself 
subsequently  stood,  when  invested  with  the  powers  of  the 
chief  magistracy. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  dissection  of  General  Cass'  position  upon  the 
questions  of  the  canvass,  was  effected  with  characteristic  neat 
ness  and  thoroughness.  Alluding  to  the  subject  of  internal 
improvements  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "My  internal  improvement 
colleague  (Mr.  Wentworth)  stated  on  this  floor  the  other  day 
that  he  was  satisfied  Cass  was  for  improvements  because  that 
he  had  voted  for  all  the  bills  that  he  (AYentworth)  had.  So 
far,  so  good.  But  Mr.  Polk  vetoed  some  of  these  very  bills; 
the  Baltimore  Convention  passed  a  set  of  resolutions  among 
other  things  approving  these  vetoes,  and  Cass  declares  in  his 
letter  accepting  the  nomination  that  he  has  carefully  read  these 
resolutions,  and  that  he  adheres  to  them  as  firmly  as  he  ap 
proves  them  cordially.  In  other  words,  General  Cass  voted, 
for  the  bills,  and  thinks  the  President  did  right  to  veto  them; 
and  his  friends  here  are  amiable  enough  to  consider  him  as 
being  one  side  or  the  other,  just  as  one  or  the  other  may 
correspond  with  their  own  respective  inclinations.  My  col 
league  admits  that  the  platform  declares  against  the  constitu 
tionality  of  a  general  system  of  improvements,  and  that  Gen 
eral  Cass  indorses  the  platform,  but  he  still  thinks  General 
Gass  is  in  favor  of  some  sort  of  improvements.  "Well,  what 


116  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

are  they?  As  he  is  against  general  objects,  those  he  is  for 
must  be  particular  and  local.  Now  this  is  taking  the  subject 
precisely  by  the  wrong  end.  Particularity — expending  the 
money  of  the  whole  people  for  an  object  which  will  benefit 
only  a  portion  of  them — is  the  greatest  real  objection  to  im 
provements,  and  has  been  so  held  by  General  Jackson,  Mr. 
Polk,  and  all  others,  I  believe,  till  now."  Certainly  this  was 
a  very  logical  exposition  of  General  Cass  on  internal  improve 
ments;  and  the  charge  of  double  dealing  or  gross  inconsist 
ency  which  it  involved  was  unanswerable. 

Mr.  Lincoln  tried  his  powers  of  ridicule  on  General  Cass 
on  this  occasion.  One  of  his  palpable  hits  has  already  been 
quoted  in  connection  with  the  history  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  par 
ticipation  in  the  Black  Hawk  war,  in  which  he  draws  a  par 
allel  between  his  own  bloodless  experiences  and  those  of  tho 
democratic  candidate.  Quoting  extracts  to  show  how  General 
Cass  had  vacillated  in  his  action  on  the  "Wilmot  Proviso,  ho 
added,  "  These  extracts  show  that  in  1846  General  Cass  was 
for  the  Proviso  at  once,  that  in  March,  1847,  he  was  still  for 
it,  but  not  just  then ;  and  that  in  December  he  was  against  it 
altogether.  This  is  a  true  index  to  the  whole  man.  When 
the  question  was  raised  in  1846,  he  was  in  a  blustering  hurry 
to  take  ground  for  it,  *  *  *  but  soon  he  began  to  see  glimpses 
of  the  great  democratic  ox-gad  waving  in  his  face,  and  to 
hear  indistinctly,  a  voice  saying,  'back!  back,  sir!  back  a 
little ! '  He  shakes  his  head,  and  bats  his  eyes,  and  blunders 
back  to  his  position  of  March,  184T  ;  but  still  the  gad  waves, 
and  the  voice  grows  more  distinct  and  sharper  still — '  back, 
sir!  back,  I  say!  further  back!'  and  back  he  goes  to  the 
position  of  December,  1847 ;  at  which  the  gad  is  still,  and 
the  voice  soothingly  says — '  so !  stand  still  at  that ! ' '  The 
homely  illustration,  culled  from  his  early  experiences,  was 
certainly  forcible,  if  not  elegant. 

In  this  political  canvass,  the  whigs  found  themselves  nearly 
as  much  perplexed  in  the  treatment  of  the  Mexican  war  as 
they  had  been  in  Congress.  They  had  selected  as  their  can 
didate  a  man  whose  reputation  had  been  made  by  the  success- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  117 

ful  prosecution  of  a  war  which  they  had  opposed.  They 
were  charged,  of  course,  with  inconsistency  by  their  oppo 
nents,  and  were  placed  in  the  awkward  position  of  being 
obliged  to  draw  nice  distinctions.  It  is  possible  that  they  de 
served  the  embarrassment  from  which  they  suffered.  General 
Taylor  had,  beyond  dispute,  been  nominated  because  he  was 
a  military  hero,  and  not  because  he  had  any  natural  or  ac 
quired  fitness  for  the  presidency.  The  war  had  made  him ; 
and  the  whigs  had  seized  upon  this  product  of  the  war  as  an 
instrument  by  which  they  might  acquire  power.  Mr.  Lincoln 
alluded  to  this  in  his  speech,  but  showed  that  while  the  whigs 
had  believed  the  war  to  be  unnecessarily  and  unconstitution 
ally  begun,  they  had  voted  supplies,  and  sent  their  men* 
"Through  suffering  and  death,"  said  he,  "by  disease  and  in 
battle,  they  have  endured,  and  fought,  and  fallen  with  you* 
Clay  and  Webster  each  gave  a  son,  never  to  be  returned, 
Prom  the  state  of  my  own  residence,  besides  other  worthy 
but  less  known  whig  names,  we  sent  Marshall,  Morrison, 
Baker  and  Hardin ;  they  all  fought,  and  one  fell,  and  in  the 
fall  of  that  one  we  lost  our  best  whig  man.  Nor  were  the 
whigs  few  in  numbers,  or  laggard  in  the  day  of  danger.  In 
that  fearful,  bloody,  breathless  struggle  at  Buena  Vista,  where 
each  man's  hard  task  was  to  beat  back  five  foes,  or  die  him- 
gelf,  of  the  five  high  officers  who  perished,  four  were  whigs." 
With  an  allusion  to  the  distinction  between  the  cause  of  the 
President  in  beginning  the  war,  and  the  cause  of  the  country 
after  it  was  begun,  Mr.  Lincoln  closed  his  speech. 

During  the  time  these  presidential  discussions  were  going 
on  in  Congress,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  close  communication  with 
the  whig  leaders  in  Illinois,  laying  out  the  work  of  the  can 
vass,  and  trying  to  convert  the  active  men  of  the  party  to  his 
own  ideas  of  sound  policy  in  the  conduct"  of  the  campaign. 
Indeed,  he  began  this  work  before  General  Taylor  was  nomi 
nated,  under  the  evident  conviction  that  he  would  be  the  can 
didate,  and  the  strong  desire  that  he  should  be.  As  early  in 
the  year  as  February  twentieth,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  U.  F. 
Linder,  a  prominent  whig  orator  of  Illinois,  on  this  subject. 


118  LIFE   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

It  betrays  the  perplexity  to  which  more  than  one  allusion  hag 
been  made,  of  the  whigs  at  the  time.  Mr.  Lincoln  says,  in 
this  letter,  "In  law,  it  is  good  policy  to  never  plead  what  you 
need  not,  lest  you  oblige  yourself  to  prove  what  you  cannot. 
Reflect  on  this  well  before  you  proceed.  The  application  I 
mean  to  make  of  this  rule  is  that  you  should  simply  go  for 
General  Taylor,  because  you  can  take  some  democrats  and 
lose  no  whigs ;  but  if  you  go  also  for  Mr.  Polk,  on  the  origin 
and  mode  of  prosecuting  the  war,  you  will  still  take  some 
democrats,  but  you  will  lose  more  whigs,  so  that,  in  the  sum 
of  the  operation,  you  will  be  loser.  TThis  is,  at  least,  my  opin 
ion  ;  and  if  you  will  look  around,  I  doubt  if  you  do  not  dis 
cover  such  to  be  the  fact  among  your  own  neighbors.  Fur 
ther  than  this :  by  justifying  Mr.  Folk's  mode  of  prosecuting 
the  war,  you  put  yourself  in  opposition  to  General  Taylor 
himself,  for  we  all  know  he  has  declared  for,  and,  in  fact, 
originated,  the  defensive  line  policy." 

In  this  letter,  Mr.  Lincoln  talks  like  a  politician  (and  he 
was  one  of  the  most  acute  that  the  country  ever  produced,) 
to  a  politician.  It  looks  as  if  he  were  handling  grave  ques 
tions  of  state  with  reference  only  to  party  ends  ;  but  the  letter 
does  not  represent  him  wholly.  In  a  subsequent  note  to  the 
same  friend,  in  answer  to  the  question  whether  "  it  would  not 
be  just  as  easy  to  elect  General  Taylor  without  opposing  the 
war,  as  by  opposing  it,"  he  replies :  "  the  locofocos  here  will 
not  let  the  whigs  be  silent,  *  *  *  so  that  they  are  compelled 
to  speak,  and  their  only  option  is  whether  they  will,  when  they 
speak,  tell  the  truth,  or  tell  a  foul,  villainous  and  bloody 
falsehood."  In  this  declaration,  the  politician  sinks,  and  the 
man  rises,  and  seems  to  be  what  he  really  is — honest  and 
conscientious. 

On  the  fourteenth  day  of  August,  the  first  session  of  the 
Thirtieth  Congress  came  to  a  close,  and  the  members  went 
home  to  continue  and  complete  the  campaign  which  they  had 
inaugurated  at  Washington.  The  session  had  been  one  of 
strong  excitements,  particular  interest  attaching  to  every  im 
portant  debate  in  consequence  of  its  bearing  upon  the  question 


LIFE   OF   ABR/IHAM   LINCOLN.  119 

of  the  presidency.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  discharged  his  duties 
well — ably  and  conscientiously,  at  least.  He  found  to  his  re 
gret  that  he  had  not  entirely  pleased  his  constituents  in  his 
course  on  the  questions  connected  with  the  war.  It  is  probable 
that  he  could  have  secured  a  renomination  had  he  himself  been 
willing  to  risk  the  result.  That  a  man  with  his  desire  for 
public  life  would  willingly  retire  from  Congress  at  the  end  of 
a  single  term  of  service  is  not  probable ;  and  while  it  has  been 
said  that  he  peremptorily  refused  to  be  again  considered  a 
candidate,  on  account  of  his  desire  to  engage  more  exclusively 
in  the  duties  of  his  profession,  it  is  not  credible  that  this  was 
his  only  motive.*  Indeed,  there  is  evidence  that  he  sought 
another  office,  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that  his  professional 
business  had  suffered  so  severely  by  his  absence  that  he  would 
have  been  glad  to  quit  it  altogether.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to 
return  to  it,  certainly,  for  at  the  close  of  the  session,  he  visited 
New  England,  and  made  a  number  of  very  effective  campaign 
speeches,  and  then  went  home,  and  devoted  his  time  to  the 
canvass  for  the  election  of  General  Taylor  until  he  had  the 
satisfaction  of  witnessing  the  triumph  of  his  candidate,  and 
the  national  success  of  the  party  to  whose  fortunes  he  had 
been  so  long  and  so  warmly  devoted. 

In  his  own  district,  Mr.  Lincoln  helped  to  give  General 
Taylor  a  majority  nearly  equal  to  that  by  which  he  had  been 
elected  to  Congress.  The  general  result  of  the  election  brought 
to  him  great  satisfaction.  It  justified  his  own  judgment  touch 
ing  the  candidate's  availability,  and  promised  a  return  to  the 
policy  which  he  believed  essential  to  the  welfare  of  the  country, 
But  little  time  was  left  between  the  close  of  the  canvass  and 
the  commencement  of  the  second  session,  so  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  no  more  than  sufficient  space  for  the  transaction  of  his 
personal  business  at  home,  before  he  was  obliged  to  take  his 
departure  again  for  Washington. 

The  second  session  of  this  Congress  was  comparatively  a 

*Mr.  Scripps,  in  his  campaign  biography,  says  that  his  refusal  to  be 
again  a  candidate,  was  in  accordance  with  an  understanding  with  the 
leading  whigs  of  his  district  before  his  election. 


120  LIFE  OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

quiet  one.  Several  months  had  elapsed  since  the  treaty  of 
Guadalupe  Hidalgo  had  ratified  peace  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico,  the  presidential  campaign  had  transpired, 
and  the  national  political  caldron  had  ceased  to  boil.  Mr. 
Lincoln  carried  into  this  session  the  anti-slavery  record  of  an 
anti-slavery  whig.  He  had  voted  forty-two  times  for  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  had  stood  firmly  by  John  Quincy  Adams 
and  Joshua  E.  Giddings  on  the  right  of  petition,  and  was 
recognized  as  a  man  who  would  do  as  much  in  opposition  to 
slavery  as  his  constitutional  obligations  would  permit  him  to 
do.  Early  in  the  session,  Mr.  Gott  of  New  York  introduced 
a  resolution  instructing  the  Committee  on  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia  to  report  a  bill  prohibiting  the  slave  trade  in  the  Dis 
trict.  The  language  of  the  preamble  upon  which  the  resolu 
tion  was  based  was  very  strong,  and  doubtless  seemed  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  unnecessarily  offensive ;  and  we  find  him  voting  with 
the  pro-slavery  men  of  the  House  to  lay  it  on  the  table,  and 
subsequently  voting  against  its  adoption.  He  had  probably 
been  maturing  a  measure  which  he  intended  should  cover  the 
same  ground,  in  another  way,  and  on  the  sixteenth  of  January 
he  introduced  a  substitute  for  this  resolution,  which  had  been 
carried  along  under  a  motion  to  reconsider.  It  provided  that 
no  person  not  within  the  District,  and  no  person  thereafter 
born  within  the  District,  should  be  held  to  slavery  within  the 
District,  or  held  to  slavery  without  its  limits,  while  it  provided 
that  those  holding  slaves  in  the  slave  states  might  bring  them 
in  and  take  them  out  again,  when  visiting  the  District  on 
public  business.  It  also  provided  for  the  emancipation  of  all 
the  slaves  legally  held  within  the  District,  at  the  will  of  their 
masters,  who  could  claim  their  full  value  at  the  hands  of  the 
government,  and  that  the  act  itself  should  be  subject  to  the 
approval  of  the  voters  of  the  District.  The  bill  had  also  a 
provision,  "  that  the  municipal  authorities  of  Washington  and 
Georgetown,  within  their  respective  jurisdictional  limits,'' 
should  be  "empowered  and  required  to  provide  active  and 
efficient  means  to  arrest  and  deliver  up  to  their  owners  all 
fugitive  slaves  escaping  into  said  District." 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  121 

If  any  evidence  were  needed  to  establish  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  regarded  slaves  as  property  under  the  Constitution, 
this  bill  would  seem  to  furnish  all  that  is  desired.  If  he  did 
not  so  regard  them,  this  bill  convicts  him  of  friendliness  rather 
than  enmity  to  slavery.  If  he  did  not  so  regard  them,  his 
whole  record  relating  to  slavery  was  a  record  of  duplicity. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  character  as  an  anti-slavery  man  can  have  no 
consistency  on  any  basis  except  that  of  his  firm  belief  that 
slaves  were  recognized  as  property  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States ;  and  those  who  impute  to  him  the  opposite 
opinion,  or  action  based  upon  the  opposite  opinion,  inflict  a 
wrong  upon  his  memory.*  He  recognized  slaves  as  property 
not  only  in  Congress,  but  on  the  stump  and  even  in  his  busi 
ness.  He  was  once  employed  by  General  Matteson  of  Bour 
bon  County,  Kentucky,  who  had  brought  five  or  six  negroes 
into  Coles  County,  Illinois,  and  worked  them  on  a  farm  for 
two  or  three  years,  to  get  them  out  of  the  hands  of  the  civil 
authorities,  which  had  interfered  to  keep  him  from  taking  them 
back  to  Kentucky.  Judge  Wilson  and  Judge  Treat,  both  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  sat  on  the  case,  and  decided  against  the 
claim  of  the  slaveholder,  as  presented  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  is 
remembered  that  he  made  a  very  poor  plea,  and  exercised  a 
good  deal  of  research  in  presenting  the  authorities  for  and 
against,  and  that  all  his  sympathies  were  on  the  side  of  the 
slaves,  but  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Lincoln  would  never  have  con 
sented  to  act  on  this  case  if  he  had  not  believed  that  slaves 
were  recognized  as  property  by  the  Constitution.  It  is  true 
that  in  a  speech  delivered  afterwards,  during  the  famous  Doug 
las  campaign,  he  denied  the  statement  made  by  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  that  "  the  right  of  property 
in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitu 
tion  ; "  but  there  was  to  him,  and  there  is  in  fact,  a  great  dif 
ference  between  a  distinct  and  express  affirmation,  and  a  real 
though  it  may  be  only  a  tacit  recognition  of  property  in  a 
slave.  Slavery  was  to  him  legally  right  and  morally  wrong. 

*"  His  vote  is  recorded  against  the  pretence  that  slaves  "were  property 
under  the  Constitution." — Charles  Simmer's  Eulogy  at  Boston,  June  1, 1865. 


122  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

He  was  equally  loyal  to  the  Constitution  and  loving  to  his 
kind ;  and  when  the  time  came  which  gave  him  the  privilege 
of  striking  off  the  fetters  of  the  slave,  in  order  to  preserve 
his  country  and  its  Constitution,  he  did  it,  and  counted  the  act 
the  crowning  one  of  his  life. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  bring  his  bill  forward  without  consul 
tation.  Mr.  Seaton,  of  the  National  Intelligencer,  is  under 
stood  to  have  been  most  in  his  confidence ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
said,  on  presenting  his  bill  to  the  House,  that  he  was  author 
ized  to  say  that,  of  about  fifteen  of  the  leading  citizens  of  the 
District  to  whom  the  proposition  had  been  submitted,  there 
was  not  one  who  did  not  give  it  his  approval.  A  substitute 
for  the  bill  was  moved,  and  finally  the  whole  subject  was 
given  up,  and  left  to  take  its  place  among  the  unfinished 
business  of  the  Congress.  The  reason  for  this  is  reported  to 
have  been  Mr.  Seaton's  withdrawal  from  the  support  of  the 
plan ;  and  Mr.  Seaton's  withdrawal  from  the  support  of  the 
plan  is  said  to  have  been  owing  to  the  visits  and  expostulations 
of  members  of  Congress  from  the  slave  states.  Mr.  Lincoln 
could  hope  to  do  nothing  without  the  approval  of  the  voters 
of  the  District,  and  to  secure  this  approval  he  must  secure 
the  support  of  the  National  Intelligencer.  That  taken  from 
his  scheme,  he  took  no  further  interest  in  pursuing  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  other  occasions,  during  the  session,  to  re 
cord  his  votes  against  slavery,  in  his  own  moderate  way — al 
ways  moved  by  his  humanity  and  his  love  of  that  which  was 
morally  right,  and  withheld  and  controlled  by  his  obligations 
to  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  as  he  apprehended  those  ob 
ligations. 

The  fourth  of  March  brought  his  Congressional  career  to  a 
close.  While  he  had  maintained  a  most  respectable  position 
in  the  House,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  made  any 
great  impression  upon  legislation,  or  upon  the  mind  of  the 
country.  His  highest  honors  were  to  be  won  in  another  field, 
for  which  his  two  years  in  the  House  were  in  part  a  prepara 
tion.  After  his  return  to  Springfield,  he  found  his  practice 
dissipated.  He  saw  that  he  should  be  obliged  to  begin  again* 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  123 

Business,  for  the  time,  had  taken  new  channels,  as  it  never 
fails  to  do  in  like  cases.  The  charms  of  the  old  life  in  Wash 
ington  came  back  to  him,  and  he  was  ready  to  take  an  office. 
He  had  a  fancy  that  he  would  like  to  be  Commissioner  of  the 
General  Land  Office,  and  Mr.  Defrees,  now  the  superintendent 
of  public  printing  at  Washington,  and  then  the  editor  of  the 
Indiana  State  Journal,  wrote  an  extended  article,  urging  his 
appointment,  and  published  it  in  that  newspaper.  The  effort 
miscarried,  very  much  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  and  the  country's  ad 
vantage;  and  Mr.  Butterfield  of  Illinois  secured  the  coveted 
place.  The  unsuccessful  application  for  this  appointment  was 
subsequently  a  theme  of  much  merriment  between  Mr.  Lin- 
coin  and  his  friends. 


CHAPTEE   X. 

ON  returning  to  Ms  home,  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  upon  the 
duties  of  his  profession,  and  devoted  himself  to  them  through 
a  series  of  years,  less  disturbed  by  diversions  into  state  and 
national  politics  than  he  had  been  during  any  previous  period 
of  his  business  life.  It  was  to  him  a  time  of  rest,  of  reading, 

'  o" 

of  social  happiness  and  of  professional  prosperity.  He  was 
already  a  father,  and  took  an  almost  unbounded  pleasure  in 
his  children.*  Their  sweet  young  natures  were  to  him  a 
perpetual  source  of  delight.  He  was  never  impatient  with 
their  petulance  and  restlessness,  loved  always  to  be  with  them, 
and  took  them  into  his  heart  with  a  fondness  which  was  un 
speakable.  It  was  a  fondness  so  tender  and  profound  as  to 
blind  him  to  their  imperfections,  and  to  expel  from  him  every 
particle  of  sternness  in  his  management  of  them.  It  must  be 
said  that  he  had  very  little  of  what  is  called  parental  govern 
ment.  The  most  that  he  could  say  to  any  little  rebel  in  his 
household  was,  "you  break  my  heart,  when  you  act  like  this ; " 
and  the  loving  eyes  and  affectionate  voice  and  sincere  expres- 

*Mr.  Lincoln  had  four  children,  all  sons,  viz:  Robert  Todd,  Edwards, 
who  died  in  infancy,  William,  who  died  in  Washington  during  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  presidency,  and  Thomas.  The  oldest  and  youngest  survive.  The 
latter  became  the  pet  of  the  White  House,  and  is  known  to  the  country 
as  "Tad."  This  nickname  was  conferred  by  his  father  who,  while 
Thomas  was  an  infant  in  arms,  and  without  a  name,  playfully  called 
him  "  Tadpole."  This  was  abbreviated  to  the  pet  name  which  he  will 
probably  never  outlive. 


ly  for  Hounds  "L^  o 


OIF  M 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  125 

sion  of  pain  were  usually  enough  to  bring  the  culprit  to  his 
senses  and  his  obedience.  A  young  man  bred  in  Springfield 
speaks  of  a  vision  that  has  clung  to  his  memory  very  vividly, 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  he  appeared  in  those  days.  His  way  to 
school  led  by  the  lawyer's  door.  On  almost  any  fair  summer 
morning,  he  could  find  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  sidewalk,  in  front 
of  his  house,  drawing  a  child  backward  and  forward,  in  a 
child's  gig.  Without  hat  or  coat,  and  wearing  a  pair  of  rough 
shoes,  his  hands  behind  him  holding  to  the  tongue  of  the  gig, 
and  his  tall  form  bent  forward  to  accommodate  himself  to  the 
service,  he  paced  up  and  down  the  walk,  forgetful  of  every 
thing  around  him,  and  intent  only  on  some  subject  that  ab 
sorbed  his  mind.  The  young  man  says  he  remembers  won 
dering,  in  his  boyish  way,  how  so  rough  and  plain  a  man 
should  happen  to  live  in  so  respectable  a  house. 

The  habit  of  mental  absorption — absent-mindedness,  as  it  is 
called — was  common  with  him  always,  but  particularly  during 
the  formative  periods  of  his  life.  The  New  Salem  people,  it 
will  be  remembered,  thought  him  crazy,  because  he  passed  his 
best  friends  in  the  street  without  seeing  them.  At  the  table, 
in  his  own  family,  he  often  sat  down  without  knowing  or  real 
izing  where  he  was,  and  ate  his  food  mechanically.  When 
he  "came  to  himself,"  it  was  a  trick  with  him  to  break  the 
silence  by  the  quotation  of  some  verse  of  poetry  from  a  favor 
ite  author.  It  relieved  the  awkwardness  of  "  the  situation," 
served  as  a  blind  to  the  thoughts  which  had  possessed  him, 
and  started  conversation  in  a  channel  that  led  as  far  as  possi 
ble  from  the  subject  that  he  had  set  aside. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  lack  of  early  advantages  and  the  limited 
character  of  his  education  were  constant  subjects  of  regret 
with  him.  His  intercourse  with  members  of  Congress  and 
with  the  cultivated  society  of  Washington  had,  without  doubt, 
made  him  feel  his  deficiencies  more  keenly  than  ever  before. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  his  successes  were  a  constant  surprise 
to  him.  He  felt  that  his  acquisitions  were  very  humble,  and 
that  the  estimate  which  the  public  placed  upon  him  was,  in 
some  respects,  a  blind  and  mistaken  one.  It  was  at  this  period 


126  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  he  undertook  to  improve  himself  somewhat  by  attention 
to  mathematics,  and  actually  mastered  the  first  six  books  of 
Euclid.  In  speaking  of  this  new  acquisition  to  a  friend,  he 
said  that,  in  debates,  he  had  frequently  heard  the  word  "  dem 
onstration  "  used,  and  he  determined  to  ascertain  for  himself 
what  it  meant.  After  his  mastery  of  geometry,  he  had  no 
further  uncertainty  on  the  subject. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  mechanical  genius. 
That  he  had  enough  of  this  to  make  him  a  good  mechanic, 
there  is  no  doubt.  With  such  rude  tools  as  were  at  his  com 
mand  he  had  made  cabins  and  flat-boats ;  and  after  his  mind 
had  become  absorbed  in  public  and  professional  affairs  he  often 
recurred  to  his  mechanical  dreams  for  amusement.  One  of  his 
dreams  took  form,  and  he  endeavored  to  make  a  practical 
matter  of  it.  He  had  had  experience  in  the  early  navigation 
of  the  Western  rivers.  One  of  the  most  serious  hinderances 
to  this  navigation  was  low  water,  and  the  lodgment  of  the 
various  craft  on  the  shifting  shoals  and  bars  with  which  these 
rivers  abound.  He  undertook  to  contrive  an  apparatus  which, 
folded  to  the  hull  of  a  boat  like  a  bellows,  might  be  inflated  on 
occasion,  and,  by  its  levity,  lift  it  over  any  obstruction  upon 
which  it  might  rest.  On  this  contrivance,  illustrated  by  a 
model  whittled  out  by  himself,  and  now  preserved  in  the  patent 
office  at  Washington,  he  secured  letters  patent ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  navigation  of  the  Western  rivers  was  not  revolution 
ized  by  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  never  made  his  profession  lucrative  to  himself. 
It  was  very  difficult  for  him  to  charge  a  heavy  fee  to  anybody, 
and  still  more  difficult  for  him  to  charge  his  friends  anything 
at  all  for  professional  services.  To  a  poor  client,  he  was  quite 
as  apt  to  give  money  as  to  take  it  from  him.  He  never  en 
couraged  the  spirit  of  litigation.  Henry  McHenry,  one  of  his 
old  clients,  says  that  he  went  to  Mr.  Lincoln  with  a  case  to  pros 
ecute,  and  that  Mr.  Lincoln  refused  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  it,  because  he  was  not  strictly  in  the  right.  "  You  can 
give  the  other  party  a  great  deal  of  trouble,"  said  the  lawyer, 
"  and  perhaps  beat  him,  but  you  had  better  let  the  suit  alone." 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  127 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  on  hand  a  case  for  this  same  gentleman  for 
three  years,  and  took  it  through  three  courts  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  charged  him  for  his  services  only  seventy-five  dol 
lars.  His  wants  were  not  large.  He  had  no  expensive  vices, 
took  no  delight  in  fine  clothing,  and  had  no  strong  desire  to 
accumulate  money.  Indeed,  after  all  his  years  of  practice, 
which  closed  only  with  his  election  to  the  presidency,  he  had 
accumulated,  as  the  sum  total  of  all  his  gold  and  goods,  only 
the  estimated  value  of  sixteen  thousand  dollars. 

Some  incidents  illustrating  his  practice,  and  the  motives 
which  controlled  him  in  it,  may  with  propriety  be  stated  here, 
although  they  are  not  all  of  them  associated  with  this  period 
of  his  life.  An  old  woman  of  seventy-five  years,  the  widow 
of  a  revolutionary  pensioner,  came  tottering  into  his  office  one 
day,  and,  taking  a  seat,  told  him  that  a  certain  pension  agent 
had  charged  her  the  exorbitant  fee  of  two  hundred  dollars  for 
collecting  her  claim.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  satisfied  by  her  repre 
sentations  that  she  had  been  swindled,  and  finding  that  she 
was  not  a  resident  of  the  town,  and  that  she  was  poor,  gave 
her  money,  and  set  about  the  work  of  procuring  restitution. 
He  immediately  entered  suit  against  the  agent  to  recover  a 
portion  of  his  ill-gotten  money.  The  suit  was  entirely  suc 
cessful,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  address  to  the  jury  before  which 
the  case  was  tried  is  remembered  to  have  been  peculiarly 
touching  in  its  allusions  to  the  poverty  of  the  widow,  and  the 
patriotism  of  the  husband  she  had  sacrificed  to  secure  the 
nation's  independence.  He  had  the  gratification  of  paying 
back  to  her  a  hundred  dollars,  and  sending  her  home  rejoicing. 

One  afternoon  an  old  ne^ro   woman  came  into  the  office 

O 

of  Lincoln  &  Herndon,*  and  told  the  story  of  her  trouble, 
to  which  both  lawyers  listened.  It  appeared  that  she  and 
her  offspring  were  born  slaves  in  Kentucky,  and  that  her 
owner,  one  Hinkle,  had  brought  the  whole  family  into  Illinois, 
and  given  them  their  freedom.  Her  son  had  gone  down  the 
Mississippi  as  a  waiter  or  deck  hand,  on  a  steamboat.  Arriv- 

*  William  II.  Herndon,  who  became  Mr.  Lincoln's  partner  after  lie 
dissolved  his  association  with  Judge  Logan. 


128  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ing  at  New  Orleans,  lie  had  imprudently  gone  ashore,  and 
had  been  snatched  up  by  the  police,  in  accordance  with  the 
law  then  in  force  concerning  free  negroes  from  other  states, 
and  thrown  into  confinement.  Subsequently,  he  was  brought 
out  and  tried.  Of  course  he  was  fined,  and,  the  boat  having 
left,  he  was  sold,  or  was  in  immediate  danger  of  being  sold, 
to  pay  his  fine  and  the  expenses.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  very 
much  moved,  and  requested  Mr.  Herndon  to  go  over  to  the 
State  House,  and  inquire  of  Governor  Bissell  if  there  was 
not  something  that  he  could  do  to  obtain  possession  of  the 
negro.  Mr.  Herndon  made  the  inquiry,  and  returned  with 
the  report  that  the  Governor  regretted  to  say  that  he  had  no 
legal  or  constitutional  right  to  do  anything  in  the  premises. 
Mr.  Lincoln  rose  to  his  feet  in  great  excitement,  and  exclaimed, 
"  By  the  Almighty,  I  '11  have  that  negro  back  soon,  or  I  '11 
have  a  twenty  years'  agitation  in  Illinois,  until  the  Governor 
does  have  a  legal  and  constitutional  right  to  do  something  in 
the  premises."  A  He  was  saved  from  the  latter  alternative — at 
least  in  the  direct  form  which  he  proposed.  The  lawyers  sent 
money  to  a  New  Orleans  correspondent — money  of  their 
own— who  procured  the  negro,  and  returned  him  to  his  mother. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  early  athletic  struggle  with  Jack  Armstrong, 
the  representative  man  of  the  "  Clary's  Grove  Boys,"  will  be 
remembered.^! From  the  moment  of  this  struggle,  which  Jack 
agreed  to  call  "  a  drawn  battle,"  in  consequence  of  his  own 
foul  play,  they  became  strong  friends.  Jack  would  fight  for 
Mr.  Lincoln  at  any  time,  and  would  never  hear  him  spoken 
against.  Indeed,  there  wTere  times  when  young  Lincoln  made 
Jack's  cabin  his  home,  and  here  Mrs.  Armstrong,  a  most 
womanly  person,  learned  to  respect  the  rising  man.  There 
was  no  service  to  which  she  did  not  make  her  guest  abund 
antly  welcome,  and  he  never  ceased  to  feel  the  tenderest  grat 
itude  for  her  kindness.  At  length,  her  husband  died,  and  she 
became  dependent  upon  her  sons.  The  oldest  of  these,  while 
in  attendance  upon  a  camp-meeting,  found  himself  involved  in 
a  melee,  which  resulted  in  the  death  of  a  young  man ;  and 
young  Armstrong  was  charged  by  one  of  his  associates  with 


UFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  129 

striking  the  fatal  blow.  He  was  arrested,  examined,  and  im 
prisoned  to  await  his  trial.  The  public  mind  was  in  a  blaze 
of  excitement,  and  interested  parties  fed  the  flame.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  knew  nothing  of  the  merits  of  this  case,  that  is  certain* 
He  only  knew  that  his  old  friend  Mrs.  Armstrong  was  in  sore 
trouble ;  and  he  sat  down  at  once,  and  volunteered  by  letter 
to  defend  her  son.  His  first  act  was  to  procure  the  postpone 
ment  and  a  change  of  the  place  of  the  trial.  There  was  too 
much  fever  in  the  minds  of  the  immediate  public  to  permit  of 
fair  treatment.  When  the  trial  came  on,  the  case  looked  very 
hopeless  to  all  but  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  assured  himself  that 
the  young  man  was  not  guilty.  The  evidence  on  behalf  of 
the  state  being  'all  in,  and  looking  like  a  solid  and  consistent 
mass  of  testimony  against  the  prisoner,  Mr.  Lincoln  undertook 
the  task  of  analyzing  and  destroying  it,  which  he  did  in  a 
manner  that  surprised  every  one.  The  principal  witness  test 
ified  that  "  by  the  aid  of  the  brightly  shining  moon,  he  saw 
the  prisoner  inflict  the  death  blow  with  a  slung  shot."  Mr, 
Lincoln  proved  by  the  almanac  that  there  was  no  moon  shining 
at  the  time.  The  mass  of  testimony  against  the  prisoner 
melted  away,  until  unot  guilty"  was  the  verdict  of  every  man 
present  in  the  crowded  court-room.  There  is,  of  course,  no 
record  of  the  plea  made  on  this  occasion,  but  it  is  remembered 
as  one  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  made  an  appeal  to  the  sympathies 
of  the  jury  which  quite  surpassed  his  usual  efforts  of  the  kind, 
and  melted  all  to  tears.  The  jury  were  out  but  half  an  hour, 
when  they  returned  with  their  verdict  of  unot  guilty."  The 
widow  fainted  in  the  arms  of  her  son,  who  divided  his  atten 
tion  between  his  services  to  her  and  his  thanks  to  his  deliverer. 
And  thus  the  kind  woman  who  cared  for  the  poor  young  man, 
and  showed  herself  a  mother  to  him  in  his  need,  received  the 
life  of  a  son,  saved  from  a  cruel  conspiracy,  as  her  reward, 
from  the  hand  of  her  grateful  beneficiary. 

The  lawyers  of   Springfield,    particularly  those  who  had 

political  aspirations,  were  afraid  to  undertake  the  defense  of 

any  one  who  had  been  engaged  in  helping  off  fugitive  slaves. 

It  was  a  very  unpopular  business  in  those  days  and  in  that  lo- 

9 


130  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

eality;  and  few  felt  that  they  could  afford  to  engage  in  it. 
One  who  needed  such  aid  went  to  Edward  D.  Baker,  and 
was  refused  defense  distinctly  and  frankly,  on  the  ground 
that,  as  a  political  man,  he  could  not  afford  it.  The  man  ap 
plied  to  an  ardent  anti-slavery  friend  for  advice.  He  spoke 
of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  said,  "  He  's  not  afraid  of  an  unpopular 
case.  When  I  go  for  a  lawyer  to  defend  an  arrested  fugitive 
slave,  other  lawyers  will  refuse  me,  but  if  Mr.  Lincoln  is  at 
home,  he  will  always  take  my  case." 

A  sheep-grower  sold  a  number  of  sheep  at  a  stipulated  av 
erage  price.  "When  he  delivered  the  animals,  he  delivered 
many  lambs,  or  sheep  too  young  to  come  fairly  within  the  terms 
of  the  contract.  He  was  sued  for  damages  by  the  injured 
party,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  his  attorney.  At  the  trial,  the 
facts  as  to  the  character  of  the  sheep  delivered  were  proved, 
and  several  witnesses  testified  as  to  the  usage  by  which  all 
under  a  certain  age  were  regarded  as  lambs,  and  of  inferior 
value.  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  comprehending  the  facts,  at  once 
changed  his  line  of  effort,  and  confined  himself  to  ascertaining 
the  real  number  of  inferior  sheep  delivered.  On  addressing 
the  jury,  he  said  that  from  the  facts  proved  they  must  give 
a  verdict  against  his  client,  and  he  only  asked  their  scrutiny 
as  to  the  actual  damage  suffered. 

In  another  case,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  conducting  a  suit  against 
a  railroad  company.  Judgment  having  been  given  in  his  fa 
vor,  and  the  court  being  about  to  allow  the  amount  claimed 
by  him,  deducting  a  proved  and  allowed  offset,  he  rose  and 
stated  that  his  opponents  had  not  proved  all  that  was  justly 
due  them  in  offset ;  and  proceeded  to  state  and  allow  a  further 
sum  against  his  client,  which  the  court  allowed  in  its  judg 
ment.  His  desire  for  the  establishment  of  exact  justice  always 
overcame  his  own  selfish  love  of  victory,  as  well  as  his  partial 
ity  for  his  clients'  feelings  and  interests. 

These  incidents  sufficiently  illustrate  the  humane  feelings  and 
thorough  honesty  which  Mr.  Lincoln  carried  into  the  practice 
of  his  profession,  and,  as  allusion  has  already  been  made  to 
the  high  estimate  placed  by  the  people  upon  his  ability  as  a 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  131 

lawyer,  it  will  be  proper  to  record  here  the  high  opinion  of  his 
professional  merits  entertained  by  the  most  eminent  represen 
tatives  of  the  bar  of  Illinois.  His  death  in  1865  was,  in  ac 
cordance  with  usage,  made  the  subject  of  notice  by  the  various 
courts  of  the  state.  The  Supreme  Court  in  session  at  Ottawa, 
received  a  series  of  resolutions  from  the  bar,  which  were 
placed  upon  its  records.  Ex-Judge  Caton,  in  presenting  them, 
said,  "He  (Mr.  Lincoln)  understood  the  relations  of  things, 
and  hence  his  deductions  were  rarely  wrong,  from  any  given 
state  of  facts.  So  he  applied  the  principles  of  law  to  the 
transactions  of  men  with  great  clearness  and  precision.  He 
was  a  close  reasoner.  He  reasoned  by  analogy,  and  enforced 
his  views  by  apt  illustration.  His  mode  of  speaking  was  gen 
erally  of  a  plain  and  unimpassioned  character,  and  yet,  he  was 
the  author  of  some  of  the  most  beautiful  and  eloquent  passages 
in  our  language,  which,  if  collected,  would  form  a  valuable 
contribution  to  American  literature.  The  most  punctilious 
honor  ever  marked  his  professional  and  private  life." 

Judge  Breese,  in  responding. to  the  resolutions  and  the  re 
marks  of  Judge  Caton,  was  still  more  outspoken  in  his  high 
opinion  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  a  lawyer.  "  For  my  single  self," 
he  said,  "I  have  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  regarded  Mr. 
Lincoln  as  the  finest  lawyer  I  ever  knew,  and  of  a  professional 
bearing  so  high-toned  and  honorable  as  justly,  and  without 
derogating  from  the  claims  of-  others,  entitling  him  to  be  pre 
sented  to  the  profession  as  a  model  well  worthy  of  the  closest 
imitation."  Judge  Thomas  Drummond  of  Chicago,  repre 
senting  the  bar  of  that  city,  said,  "  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
saying  that  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  I  have  ever 
known."  In  addition,  he  said,  "  no  intelligent  man  who  ever 
watched  Mr.  Lincoln  through  a  hard-contested  case  at  the 
bar,  questioned  his  great  ability."  Judge  Drummond's  pic 
ture  of  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  bar,  and  his  mode  of  speech  and 
action  is  so  graphic  and  so  just  that  it  deserves  to  be  quoted : 

"  With  a  voice  by  no  means  pleasant,  and,  indeed,  when  excited,  in  its 
shrill  tones,  sometimes  almost  disagreeable ;  without  any  of  the  personal 
graces  of  the  orator;  without  much  in  the  outward  man  indicating  supe- 


132  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

riority  of  intellect ;  without  great  quickness  of  perception — still,  his  mind 
was  so  vigorous,  his  comprehension  so  exact  and  clear,  and  his  judgment 
BO  sure,  that  he  easily  mastered  the  intricacies  of  his  profession,  and 
became  one  of  the  ablest  reasoners  and  most  impressive  speakers  at  our 
bar.  With  a  probity  of  character  known  of  all,  with  an  intuitive  insight 
into  the  human  heart,  with  a  clearness  of  statement  which  was  itself  an 
argument,  with  uncommon  power  and  felicity  of  illustration, — often,  it 
is  true,  of  a  plain  and  homely  kind, — and  with  that  sincerity  and  earn 
estness  of  manner  which  carried  conviction,  he  was,  perhaps,  one  of  the 
most  successful  jury  lawyers  we  have  ever  had  in  the  state.  He  always 
tried  a  case  fairly  and  honestly.  He  never  intentionally  misrepresented 
the  evidence  of  a  witness  or  the  argument  of  an  opponent.  He  met 
both  squarely,  and,  if  he  could  not  explain  the  one  or  answer  the  other, 
substantially  admitted  it.  He  never  misstated  the  law  according  to  his 
own  intelligent  view  of  it." 

These  tributes  to  the  professional  excellence  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
by  those  best  qualified  to  judge  it,  are  all  the  more  significant 
from  the  fact  that  it  was  rendered  by  those  who,  throughout 
his  whole  career,  were  opposed  to  him  politically — by  demo 
crats  and  conservatives.  Judge  David  Davis,  of  Bloomington, 
Illinois,  a  strong  personal  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  responding 
to  resolutions  presented  by  the  bar  of  Indianapolis,  said  that 
"  in  all  the  elements  that  constitute  the  great  lawyer,  he 
(Mr.  Lincoln)  had  few  equals.  He  was  great  both  at  Nisi 
Prius  and  before  an  appellate  tribunal.  He  seized  the  strong 
points  of  a  case,  and  presented  them  writh  clearness  and  great 
compactness.  A  vein  of  humor  never  deserted  him,  and  he 
was  always  able  to  chain  the  attention  of  court  and  jury  when 
the  cause  was  the  most  uninteresting,  by  the  appropriateness 
of  his  anecdotes." 

It  was  during  this  period  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  life  that  he  was 
called  upon  to  pronounce  a  eulogy  upon  Henry  Clay.  The 
death  of  this  eminent  statesman  occurred  in  1852,  and  the 
citizens  of  Springfield  thought  of  no  man  so  competent  to  do 
his  memory  justice  as  he  who  had  through  so  many  years 
been  devoted  to  his  interests  and  his  political  principles.  The 
eulogy  was  pronounced  in  the  State  House,  and  was  listened 
to  by  a  large  audience.  The  discourse,  as  it  was  printed  in. 
the  city  newspapers  of  the  day,  was  by  no  means  a  remarka- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  133 

.  • 

ble  one.  It  is  remembered  as  a  very  dull  one  at  its  delivery, 
and  was  so  regarded  by  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  who  complained 
that  he  lacked  the  imagination  necessary  for  a  performance  of 
that  character.  It  is  possible  that  the  effect  upon  his  mind 
of  the  old  visit  to  Ashland  was  not  entirely  obliterated ;  for 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  quite  accustomed  to  find  expression  for  any 
admiration  that  was  really  within  him.  The  closing  words  of 
the  eulogy,  though  hortatory  in  form,  were  prophetic  in  fact, 
and,  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  have  a  touching  in 
terest.  "  Such  a  man,"  said  he,  "  the  times  have  demanded, 
and  such  in  the  Providence  of  God  was  given  us.  But  he  is 
gone/  Let  us  strive  to  deserve,  as  far  as  mortals  may,  the 
continued  care  of  Divine  Providence,  trusting  that  in  future 
national  emergencies  he  will  not  fail  to  provide  us  the  instru 
ments  of  safety  and  security."  That  Divine  Providence 
which  he  so  confidently  trusted  then,  trusted  him  as  the  instru 
ment  for  executing  its  own  designs,  in  the  greatest  of  national 
emergencies. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  during  these  years  of  quiet  pro 
fessional  life  Mr.  Lincoln  was  entirely  indifferent  to  the  course 
of  political  affairs.  Great  national  events  were  in  progress, 
which  must  have  impressed  him  profoundly.  The  slave  states, 
conscious  that  power  was  departing  from  them,  were  desperate 
in  their  efforts  and  fruitful  in  their  expedients  to  retain  it. 
On  the  9th  of  September,  1850,  the  free  state  of  California 
was  admitted  to  the  Union.  There  was  a  double  bitterness 
in  this  measure  to  those  interested  in  the  perpetuation  of  the 
influence  of  slavery  in  national  affairs.  The  state  was  formed 
from  territory  on  which  the  South  had  hoped  to  extend  the 
area  of  their  institution — which  had  been  won  from  Mexico 
for  that  special  purpose ;  and  there  wras  no  slave  state  in  read 
iness  to  be  admitted  with  it,  in  accordance  with  southern  policy 
and  congressional  usage.  As  an  offset  to  this  accession  to  the 
power  of  the  free  states,  a  series  of  concessions  were  exacted 
of  them  which  excited  great  discontent  among  the  people. 
The  compromise  measures  of  1850,  as  they  were  called,  did 
not  satisfy  either  section.  The  South  did  not  see  in  them  the 


134  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

• 

security  they  desired,  and  the  North  felt  itself  wronged  and 
humiliated  by  them.  Yet  there  was  among  the  people  of  both 
sections  a  strong  desire  for  peace.  They  had  become  weary 
with  agitation,  and  readily  fell  in  with  the  action  of  the  two 
national  conventions,  which,  in  1852,  accepted  these  measures 
as  a  final  settlement  of  the  points  of  difference  between  the 
two  sections  of  the  country.  It  is  easy,  in  looking  back,  to 
see  how  wretched  a  basis  these  measures  furnished  for  peace 
between  freedom  and  slavery ;  but  the  best  men  and  the  most 
patriotic  men  of  the  time  found  nothing  better. 

How  far  Mr.  Lincoln  shared  in  the  desire  that  these  meas 
ures  should  be  the  final  settlement  of  the  slavery  question  in 
the  country,  or  believed  it  possible  that  they  could  be,  is  not 
known.  Although  he  consented  to  stand  on  the  Scott  elect 
oral  ticket  in  1852,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  gone  into  the 
canvass  with  his  characteristic  earnestness.  His  party  had 
committed  him,  in  advance,  to  silence  on  the  subject  of  slavery ; 
and  it  was  quite  possible  that  he  was  willing  to  see  how  much 
could  be  done  towards  stifling  what  seemed  to  be  a  fruitless 
agitation.  He  made  but  few  speeches,  and  these  few  made 
little  impression.  The  defeat  of  General  Scott  and  the  election 
of  General  Pierce  was  in  accordance  with  the  popular  expect 
ation.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  been  diverted  from  his  profes 
sional  pursuits  by  the  campaign,  and  for  two  years  thereafter 
he  found  nothing  in  politics  to  call  him  from  his  business. 

In  1854,  a  new  political  era  opened.  Events  occurred  of 
immeasurable  influence  upon  the  country;  and  an  agitation 
of  the  slavery  question  was  begun  which  was  destined  not  to 
cease  until  slavery  itself  should  be  destroyed.  Disregarding 
the  pledges  of  peace  and  harmony,  the  party  in  the  interest 
of  slavery  effected  in  Congress  the  abrogation  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820 — a  compromise  which  was  intended  to 
shut  slavery  forever  out  of  the  north-west ;  and  a  bill  organ 
izing  the  territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  was  enacted, 
which  left  them  free  to  choose  whether  they  would  have 
slavery  as  an  institution  or  not.  The  intention,  without 
doubt,  was  to  force  slavery  upon  those  territories — to  make 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  135 

it  impossible  for  them  ever  to  become  free  states — as  the  sub 
sequent  exhibitions  of  "border  ruffianism"  in  Kansas  suffi 
ciently  testified.  This  great  political  iniquity  aroused  Mr. 
Lincoln  as  he  had  never  before  been  aroused.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  he  fully  comprehended  the  fact  that  there  was  to  be 
no  peace  on  the  slavery  question  until  either  freedom  or  slavery 
should  triumph.  He  knew  slavery  to  be  wrong.  He  had  al 
ways  known  and  felt  it  to  be  so.  He  knew  that  he  regarded 
the  institution  as  the  fathers  of  the  republic  had  regarded  it; 
but  a  new  doctrine  had  been  put  forward.  Slavery  was  right. 
Slavery  was  entitled  to  equal  consideration  with  freedom. 
Slavery  claimed  the  privilege  of  going  wherever,  into  the 
national  domain,  it  might  choose  to  go.  Slavery  claimed  na 
tional  protection  everywhere.  Instead  of  remaining  content 
edly  within  the  territory  it  occupied  under  the  protection  of 
the  Constitution,  it  sought  to  extend  itself  indefinitely — to 
nationalize  itself. 

Judge  Douglas  of  Illinois  was  the  responsible  author  of 
what  was  called  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill — a  bill  which  he 
based  upon  what  he  was  pleased  to  denominate  "  popular  sover 
eignty  " — the  right  of  the  people  of  a  territory  to  choose  their 
own  institutions ;  and  between  Judge  Douglas  and  Mr.  Lin 
coln  was  destined  to  be  fought  "  the  battle  of  the  giants  "  on 
the  questions  that  grew  out  of  this  great  political  crime. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  indignation  was  an  index  to  the  popular  feeling 
all  over  the  North.  The  men  who,  in  good  faith,  had  acqui 
esced  in  the  compromise  measures,  though  with  great  reluctance 
and  only  for  the  sake  of  peace — who  had  compelled  themselves 
to  silence  by  biting  their  lips — who  had  been  forced  into  si 
lence  by  their  love  of  the  Union  whose  existence  the  slave 
power  had  threatened — saw  that  they  had  been  over-reached 
and  foully  wronged. 

Mr.  Douglas,  on  his  return  to  his  constituents,  was  met  by 
a  storm  of  indignation,  so  that  when  he  first  undertook  to 
speak  in  vindication  of  himself  he  was  not  permitted  to  do  so. 
He  found  that  he  had  committed  a  great  political  blunder, 
even  if  he  failed  to  comprehend  the  fact  that  he  had  been 


136  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

guilty  of  a  criminal  breach  of  faith.  The  first  exhibitions  of 
popular  rage  naturally  passed  away,  so  that  the  city  which 
refused  to  hear  him  speak,  now  honors  his  dust  as  that  of  a 
great  and  powerful  and  famous  man ;  but  the  city  and  the  state 
have  discarded  his  political  principles ;  and  the  party  which 
once  honored  him  with  so  much  confidence,  remembers  with 
regret — possibly  with  bitterness — that  he  was  mainly  responsi 
ble  for  its  overthrow.  Mr.  Douglas,  without  doubt,  foresaw 
what  was  coming,  as  the  result  of  his  political  misdeeds,  but 
he  tried  to  avert  the  popular  judgment.  He  spoke  in  various 
places  in  the  state,  but  with  little  effect.  Congress  had  ad 
journed  early  in  August.  His  attempt  to  speak  in  Chicago 
was  made  on  the  first  of  September,  and  early  in  October,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  State  Fair,  he  found  himself  at  Springfield. 
The  Fair  had  brought  together  a  large  number  of  represen 
tative  men,  from  all  parts  of  the  state,  many  of  whom  had 
come  for  the  purposes  of  political  reunion  and  consultation. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  political  speaking,  but  the  chief  in 
terest  of  the  occasion  centered  in  a  discussion  between  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  Mr.  Douglas.  It  had  been  many  years  since 
these  two  men  had  found  themselves  pitted  against  each  other 
in  debate,  and  during  nearly  all  these  years,  Mr.  Douglas  had 
been  in  public  life.  He  was  a  man  known  to  the  whole  nation. 
He  was  the  recognized  leader  of  his  party  in  Illinois,  notwith 
standing  the  fact  that  his  course  had  driven  many  from  his 
support.  His  experience  in  debate,  his  easy  audacity  and 
assurance,  his  great  ability,  his  strong  will,  his  unconquerable 
ambition,  and  his  untiring  industry,  made  him  a  most  formid 
able  antagonist.  To  say  .that  his  unlimited  self-confidence, 
which  not  unfrequently  made  him  arrogant  and  overbearing — 
at  least,  in  appearance — assisted  him  in  the  work  which  he  had 
before  him,  would  be  to  insult  the  independent  common  sense 
of  the  people  he  addressed.  Mr.  Douglas  entered  into  an 
exposition  and  defense  of  his  principles  and  policy  with  the 
bearing  of  a  man  who  had  already  conquered.  His  long  and 
uninterrupted  success  had  made  him  restive  under  inquisition, 
impatient  of  dispute,  and  defiant  of  opposition. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN*  137 

On  the  (lay  following  the  speech  of  Mr.  Douglas,  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  who  had  listened  to  him,  replied,  and  Mr.  Douglas  was 
among  his  auditors.  The  speech  delivered  on  this  occasion 
was  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  eloquent  efforts  of  his  life. 
Mr.  Lincoln  began  by  saying  that  he  wished  to  present  noth 
ing  to  the  people  but  the  truth,  to  which  they  were  certainly 
entitled,  and  that,  if  Judge  Douglas  should  detect  him  in 
saying  anything  untrue,  he  (Judge  Douglas)  would  correct 
him.  Mr.  Douglas  took  license  from  this  remark  to  interrupt 
him  constantly,  with  the  most  unimportant  questions,  and  in 
such  a  way  as  to  show  Mr.  Lincoln  that  his  only  motive  was 
to  break  him  down.  Finally,  the  speaker  lost  his  patience, 
and  said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  cannot  afford  to  spend  my  time  in 
quibbles.  I  take  the  responsibility  of  asserting  the  truth 
myself,  relieving  Judge  Douglas  from  the  necessity  of  his 
impertinent  corrections."  From  this  point,  he  was  permitted 
to  proceed  uninterruptedly,  until  a  speech  occupying  three 
hours  and  ten  minutes  was  concluded.  No  report  of  this 
speech  was  made,  and  no  judgment  can  be  formed  of  it,  ex 
cept  such  as  can  be  made  up  from  the  cotemporary  newspaper 
accounts,  the  recollections  of  those  who  heard  it,  and  its  effect 
upon  the  politics  of  the  state.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  party 
press  was  unbounded,  and  was  manifestly  genuine.  The 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  the  subject  of  debate ;  and  his  ex 
posure  of  its  fallacies  and  iniquities  was  declared  to  be  over 
whelming.  His  whole  heart  was  in  his  words.  The  Spring 
field  Journal,  in  describing  the  speech  and  the  occasion,  says: 
**  He  quivered  with  feeling  and  emotion.  The  whole  house 
was  as  still  as  death.  He  attacked  the  bill  with  unusual 
warmth  and  energy,  and  all  felt  that  a  man  of  strength  was  its 
enemy,  and  that  he  intended  to  blast  it  if  he  could  by  strong 
and  manly  efforts.  He  was  most  successful ;  and  the  house 
approved  the  glorious  triumph  of  truth  by  loud  and  long- 
continued  huzzas.  Women  waved  their  white  handkerchiefs 
in  token  of  woman's  silent  but  heartfelt  consent.  *  *  *  Mr. 
Lincoln  exhibited  Douglas  in  all  the  attitudes  he  could  be 
placed  in  in  a  friendly  debate.  He  exhibited  the  bill  hi  all  its 


138  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN". 

aspects,  to  show  its  humbuggery  and  falsehoods,  and  when 
thus  torn  to  rags,  cut  into  slips,  held  up  to  the  gaze  of  the 
vast  crowd,  a  kind  of  scorn  was  visible  upon  the  face  of  the 
crowd  and  upon  the  lips  of  the  most  eloquent  speaker."  The . 
editor,  in  concluding  his  account,  says:  "At  the  conclusion  of 
the  speech,  every  man  felt  that  it  was  unanswerable — that  no 
human  power  could  overthrow  it,  or  trample  it  under  foot. 
The  long  and  repeated  applause  evinced  the  feelings  of  the  * 
crowd,  and  gave  token  of  universal  assent  to  Lincoln's  whole 
argument ;  and  every  mind  present  did  homage  to  the  man 
who  took  captive  the  heart,  and  broke  like  a  sun  over  the 
understanding." 

The  account  of  this  speech  in  the  Chicago  Press  and  Trib 
une  was  not  less  enthusiastic  in  its  praise,  than  the  journal 
just  quoted.  After  stating  that,  within  the  limits  of  a  news 
paper  article,  it  would  be  impossible  to  give  an  idea  of  the 
strength  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  argument,  and  that  it  was  by  far 
the  ablest  effort  of  the  campaign,  he  quotes  the  following  pas 
sage  directly  from  the  speech,  as  remarkable  in  its  power 
upon  the  audience:  "My  distinguished  friend  says  it  is  an 
insult  to  the  emigrants  to  Kansas  and  Nebraska  to  suppose 
they  are  not  able  to  govern  themselves.  We  must  not  slur 
over  an  argument  of  this  kind  because  it  happens  to  tickle  the 
ear.  It  must  be  met  and  answered.  I  admit  that  the  emi 
grant  to  Kansas  and  Nebraska  is  competent  to  govern  himselfj 
but  (the  speaker  rising  to  his  full  hight,)  I  deny  his  right  to 
govern  any  other  person  without  that  person's  consent"  That 
touched  the  very  marrow  of  the  matter,  and  revealed  the  whole 
difference  between  him  and  Douglas.  The  crowd  understood 
it.  They  saw  through  the  iniquity  of  "popular  sovereignty," 
and  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  the  applause  which  fol 
lowed  showed  their  appreciation  of  the  clearness  and  thorough* 
ness  with  which  the  speaker  had  exposed  it. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  concluded  his  speech,  Mr.  Douglas 
fiastily  took  the  stand,  and  said  that  he  had  been  abused, 
"though  in  a  perfectly  courteous  manner."  He  spoke  until 
the  adjournment  of  the  meeting  for  supper,  but  touched  only 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  139 

slightly  upon  the  great  questions  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
handled  with  so  much  power.  That  he  felt  his  effort  to  be  a 
failure,  is  evident  from  subsequent  events  soon  to  be  recounted. 
Before  closing,  he  insisted  on  his  right  to  resume  his  speech  in 
the  evening,  but  when  evening  came  he  did  not  resume,  and 
did  not  choose  to  resume.  The  speech  was  never  concluded. 

The  next  meeting  between  the  two  party  champions  took 
place  at  Peoria,  though  not  by  pre-arrangement.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  followed  Mr.  Douglas  to  Peoria,  and  challenged  him 
there,  as  he  had  done  at  Springfield.  At  Peoria,  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  triumph  was  even  more  marked  than  at  Springfield, 
for  his  antagonist  had  lost  something  of  his  assurance.  He 
was  a  wounded  and  weakened  man,  indeed.  He  had  become 
conscious  that  he  was  not  invulnerable.  He  had  been  a  wit 
ness  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  power  over  the  people ;  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  his  faith  in  his  own  position  had  been  shaken. 
It  was  noticed  at  Peoria  that  his  manner  was  much  modified, 
and  that  he  betrayed  a  lack  of  confidence  in  himself,  not  at 
all  usual  with  him.  Here,  as  at  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln  oc 
cupied  more  than  three  hours  in  the  delivery  of  his  speech, 
and  it  came  down  upon  Mr.  Douglas  so  crushingly  that  the 
doughty  debater  did  not  even  undertake-  to  reply  to  it. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  political 
speeches,  resorted  to  none  of  the  tricks  common  among  what 
are  called  stump  speakers.  He  was  thoroughly  in  earnest  and 
always  closely  argumentative.  If  he  told  stories,  it  was  not 
to  amuse  a  crowd,  but  to  illustrate  a  point.  The  real  questions 
at  issue  engaged  his  entire  attention,  and  he  never  undertook 
to  raise  a  false  issue  or  to  dodge  a  real  one.  Indeed,  he  seemed 
incapable  of  the  tricks  so  often  resorted  to  for  the  discomfiture 
of  an  opponent.  Fortunately,  the  Peoria  speech  was  reported, 
and  we  have  an  opportunity  of  forming  an  intelligent  judg 
ment  of  its  character  and  its  power.  One  passage  will  suffice 
to  illustrate  both.  Mr.  Douglas  had  urged  that  the  people  of 
Illinois  had  no  interest  in  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  terri 
tories — that  it  concerned  only  the  people  of  the  territories. 
This  was  in  accordance  with  his  own  feeling,  when  he  declared 


140  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

that  he  did  not  care  whether  slavery  was  "  voted  up  or  voted 
down"  in  Kansas.  Mr.  Lincoln  opposed  this  on  the  broad 
ground  of  humanity  and  the  terms  of  the  declaration  of  in 
dependence  ;  but  to  bring  the  matter  more  directly  home,  and 
to  show  that  the  people  of  Illinois  had  a  practical  interest  in 
the  question  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  he  said: 

"  By  the  Constitution,  each  state  has  two  senators — each  has  a  num 
ber  of  representatives  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  its  people,  and 
each  has  a  number  of  presidential  electors,  equal  to  the  whole  number 
of  its  representatives  and  senators  together.  But  in  ascertaining  the 
number  of  the  people  for  the  purpose,  five  slaves  are  counted  as  being 
equal  to  three  whites.  The  slaves  do  not  vote  ;  they  are  only  counted, 
and  so  used  as  to  swell  the  influence  of  the  white  people's  votes.  The 
practical  effect  of  this  is  more  aptly  shown  by  a  comparison  of  the  states 
of  South  Carolina  and  Maine.  South  Carolina  has  six  representatives 
and  so  has  Maine  ;  South  Carolina  has  eight  presidential  electors  and  so 
has  Maine.  This  is  precise  equality  so  far;  and  of  course  they  are 
equal  in  senators,  each  having  two.  Thus,  in  the  control  of  the  gov 
ernment,  they  are  equals  precisely.  But  how  are  they  in  the  number 
of  their  white  people  V  Maine  has  581,813,  while  South  Carolina  has 
274,567.  Maine  has  twice  as  many  as  South  Carolina,  and  32,679  over. 
Thus  each  white  man  in  South  Carolina  is  more  than  the  double  of  any 
man  in  Maine.  This  is  all  because  South  Carolina,  besides  her  free 
people,  has  387,984  slaves.  The  South  Carolinian  has  precisely  the 
game  advantage  over  the  white  man  in  every  other  free  state  as  well  as 
in  Maine.  He  is  more  than  the  double  of  any  one  of  us.  The  same 
advantage,  but  not  to  the  same  extent,  is  held  by  all  the  citizens  of  the 
slave  states  over  those  of  the  free ;  and  it  is  an  absolute  truth,  without 
an  exception,  that  there  is  no  voter  in  any  slave  state  but  who  has  more 
legal  power  in  the  government  than  any  voter  in  any  free  state.  There 
is  no  instance  of  exact  equality ;  and  the  disadvantage  is  against  us  the 
whole  chapter  through.  This  principle,  in  the  aggregate,  gives  the  slave 
states  in  the  present  Congress  twenty  additional  representatives — being 
seven  more  than  the  whole  majority  by  which  they  passed  the  Nebraska 
bill. 

"  Now  all  this  is  manifestly  unfair ;  yet  I  do  not  mention  it  to  complain 
of  it,  in  so  far  as  it  is  already  settled.  It  is  in  the  Constitution,  and  I 
do  not  for  that  cause,  or  any  other  cause,  propose  to  destroy,  or  alter, 
or  disregard  the  Constitution.  I  stand  to  it  fairly,  fully  and  firmly. 
But  when  I  am  told  that  I  must  leave  it  altogether  to  other  people  to 
say  whether  new  partners  are  to  be  bred  up  and  brought  into  the  firm, 
on  the  same  degrading  terms  against  me,  I  respectfully  demur.  I  insist 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN".  141 

that  whether  I  shall  be  a  whole  man  or  only  the  half  of  one  in  compari 
son  with  others  is  a  question  in  which  I  am  somewhat  concerned ;  and 
One  which  no  other  man  can  have  a  sacred  right  of  deciding  for  me.  If 
I  am  wrong  in  this — if  it  really  be  a  sacred  right  of  self-government  in 
the  man  who  shall  go  to  Nebraska  to  decide  whether  he  will  be  the  equal 
of  me  or  the  double  of  me,  then,  after  he  shall  have  exercised  that  right, 
and  thereby  shall  have  reduced  me  to  a  still  smaller  fraction  of  a  man 
than  I  already  am,  I  should  like  for  some  gentleman  deeply  skilled  in 
the  mystery  of  '  sacred  rights,'  to  provide  himself  with  a  microscope, 
and  peep  about  and  find  out  if  he  can  what  has  become  of  my  *  sacred 
rights.'  They  will  surely  be  too  small  for  detection  by  the  naked  eye. 

"  Finally,  I  insist  that  if  there  is  anything  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
whole  people  to  never  intrust  to  any  hands  but  their  own,  that  thing  is 
the  preservation  and  perpetuity  of  their  own  liberties  and  institutions. 
And  if  they  shall  think,  as  I  do,  that  the  extension  of  slavery  endangers 
them  more  than  any  or  all  other  causes,  how  recreant  to  themselves  if 
they  submit  the  question,  and  with  it,  the  fate  of  their  country,  to  a 
mere  handful  of  men  bent  only  on  temporary  self-interest ! " 

Mr.  Douglas  might  well  excuse  himself  from  any  attempt 
to  answer  this  argument,  or  escape  from  its  inevitable  logic, 
for  it  was  unanswerable. 

It  was  naturally  the  wish  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  continue  these 
discussions  in  other  parts  of  the  state.  He  felt  that  a  revolu 
tion  of  public  opinion  was  in  progress — that  parties  were 
breaking  up,  and  that  he  had  his  opponent  at  a  disadvantage. 
But  Mr.  Douglas  had  had  enough  for  this  time.  He  wished 
to  withdraw  his  forces  before  they  were  destroyed.  He  had 
had  a  heavy  skirmish,  and  been  worsted.  He  shrank  from  a 
continuance  of  the  fight.  The  great  and  decisive  battle  was 
to  come. 

At  the  close  of  the  debate,  the  two  combatants  held  a  con 
ference,  the  result  of  which  has  been  variously  reported. 
One  authority*  states  that  Mr.  Douglas  sent  for  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  told  him  that  if  he  would  speak  no  more  during  the  cam 
paign,  he  (Douglas)  would  go  home  and  remain  silent  during 
the  same  period,  and  that  this  arrangement  was  agreed  upon 
and  its  terms  fulfilled.  That  there  was  a  conference  on  the 
subject  sought  by  Mr.  Douglas,  there  is  no  doubt;  and  there 

*  William  H.  Herndon,  Mr.  Lincoln's  partner. 


142  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Lincoln  promised  not  to  challenge  him 
again  to  debate  during  the  canvass,  but  abundant  evidence  ex 
ists  that  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  leave  the  field  at  all,  but  spoke 
in  various  parts  of  the  state. 

Owing  very  materially  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  efforts,  a  political 
revolution  swept  the  state.  The  old  stronghold  of  the  demo* 
cratic  party  fell  before  the  onslaughts  made  upon  it,  and,  for 
the  first  time  since  the  democratic  party  was  organized,  the 
legislature  of  Illinois  was  in  the  hands  of  the  opposition. 
Politics  were  in  a  transitional,  not  to  say  chaotic  state.  The 
opposition  was  made  up  of  whigs,  Americans,  and  anti-Ne 
braska  democrats.  Among  the  men  elected  was  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself,  who  had  been  put  in  nomination  while  absent,  by 
his  friends  in  the  county.  As  has  already  been  stated,  he 
resigned  before  taking  his  seat.  His  election  was  effected 
without  consultation  with  him,  and  entirely  against  his  wishes. 

The  excitement  attending  the  election  of  this  legislature  did 
not  die  out  with  the  election,  for  the  new  body  had  the  re 
sponsibility  of  electing  a  United  States  senator.  The  old 
whigs  elected  had  not  relinquished  the  hope  that,  by  some 
means,  their  party,  which  had  in  reality  been  broken  up  by 
the  southern  whigs  in  Congress  going  over  to  the  democrats 
on  the  vote  for  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  would 
again  be  united,  while  the  anti-Nebraska  democrats  declined 
to  go  over  to  the  whigs,  supposing  that,  by  clinging  together, 
they  could  force  the  regular  democracy  of  the  state  to  come 
upon  their  ground.  Here  were  two  strongly  antagonistic 
interests  that  were  in  some  way  to  be  harmonized,  in  order  to 
beat  the  nominee  of  the  great  body  of  the  democrats  who  still 
acknowledged  the  lead  of  Judge  Douglas.  The  anti-Ne 
braska  democrats  refused  to  JTO  into  a  nominating  caucus  with 

O  O 

the  whigs,  and  three  candidates  were  placed  in  the  field.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  the  nominee  of  the  whigs,  Lyman  Trumbufl 
of  the  anti-Nebraska  democrats,  and  General  James  Shields 
of  the  democrats  of  the  Douglas  school.  After  a  number  of 
undecisive  ballots  in  the  legislature,  the  democrats  having 
dropped  their  candidate  and  adopted  Governor  Joel  A.  Mat- 


LIFE   OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN.  143 

.teson — a  gentleman  who  had  not  committed  himself  to  either 
eide  of  the  great  question — it  became  possible  for  the  sup 
porters  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Trumbull  to  elect  one  of 
those  gentlemen,  by  a  union  of  their  forces.  That  Mr.  Lin 
coln  was  ambitious  for  the  honors  of  this  high  office  there  is 
no  question,  but  he  had  seen  Governor  Matteson  come  within 
three  votes  of  an  election,  and  perceived  that  there  was  actual 
danger  of  his  triumph.  At  this  juncture,  he  begged  his 
friends  to  leave  him,  and  go  for  Mr.  Trumbull.  They  yielded 
to  his  urgent  entreaties,  though  it  is  said  that  strong  men 
among  them  actually  wept  when  they  consented  to  do  so. 
The  consequence  was  the  election  of  Mr.  Trumbull,  to  the 
great  astonishment  of  the  democrats,  who  did  not  believe  it 
possible  for  the  opposition  to  unite.  Their  triumph  was  due 
simply  to  the  magnanimity  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  devotion  to 
principle.  He  had  no  reproaches  for  those  anti-Xebraska 
democrats  who  had  refused  to  go  for  him,  although  his  argu 
ments  had  done  more  than  those  of  any  other  man  to  give  them 
their  power,  and  he  cared  far  more  for  the  triumph  of  political 
truth  and  honor  than  for  his  own  elevation.  Mr.  Lincoln 
never  had  reason  to  regret  his  self-sacrifice,  for,  upon  the 
organization  of  the  republican  party,  all  the  opposition  par 
ties  found  themselves  together,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  became  their 
foremost  man. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE  legitimate  fruit  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  liad 
already  begun  to  manifest  itself  in  Kansas.  Emigrants  from 
the  eastern  states  and  from  the  north-west  began  to  pour 
into  the  territory;  and  those  who  had  intended  that  it  should 
become  a  slave  state  saw  that  their  scheme  was  in  danger. 
Mr.  Douglas  may  not  have  cared  whether  slavery  was  "  voted 
up  or  voted  down"  in  Kansas,  but  slaveholders  themselves 
showed  a  strong  preference  for  voting  it  up,  and  not  only  for 
voting  it  up,  but  of  backing  up  their  votes  by  any  requisite 
amount  of  violence.  An  organization  in  Platte  County,  Mis 
souri,  declared  its  readiness,  when  called  upon  by  the  citizens 
.  of  Kansas,  to  assist  in  removing  any  and  all  emigrants  who  go 
there  under  the  auspices  of  any  of  the  "  Emigrant  Aid  Soci 
eties;"  which  societies,  by  the  way,  were  supposed  to  be  or 
ganizations  operating  in  the  free  state  interest.  This  was  in 
July,  1854,  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  having  been  passed 
during  the  previous  May.  One  B.  F.  Stringfellow  was  the 
secretary  of  the  organization,  and  a  fortnight  later  he  intro 
duced,  at  a  meeting  of  the  society,  resolutions  declaring  in 
favor  of  extending  slavery  into  Kansas.  Almon  H.  JReeder 
was  appointed  Governor,  and  arrived  in  the  territory  during 
the  following  October.  At  two  elections,  held  within  the 
succeeding  six  months,  the  polls  were  entirely  controlled  by 
ruffians  from  the  Missouri  side  of  the  border,  and  those  dis~ 
turbances  were  fully  inaugurated  which  illustrated  the  des*- 
perate  desire  of  slavery  to  extend  its  territory  and  its  power, 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  145 

the  hypocrisy  of  Mr.  Douglas  and  his  friends  in  the  declara 
tion  that  the  people  of  the  territory  should  be  perfectly  free 
to  choose  and  form  their  institutions,  and  the  shameful  sub 
serviency  of  the  government  at  Washington  to  the  interests 
of  the  barbarous  institution. 

This  much  of  the  history  of  Kansas,  in  order  to  a  perfect 
appreciation  of  a  private  letter  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  his  Kentucky 
friend,  Mr.  Speed: 

«  SPRINGFIELD,  August  24, 1855. 

"  DEAR  SPEED  : — You  know  what  a  poor  correspondent  I  am.  Ever 
since  I  received  your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the  twenty-second  of  May, 
I  have  been  intending  to  write  you  in  answer  to  it.  You  suggest  that 
in  political  action  now,  you  and  I  would  differ.  You  know  I  dislike 
slavery,  and  you  fully  admit  the  abstract  wrong  of  it.  So  far,  there  is  no 
cause  of  difference.  But  you  say  that  sooner  than  yield  your  legal  right 
to  the  slave,  especially  at  the  bidding  of  those  who  are  not  themselves 
interested,  you  would  see  the  Union  dissolved.  I  am  not  aware  that 
sny  one  is  bidding  you  yield  that  right — very  certainly  I  am  not.  I 
leave  that  matter  entirely  to  yourself.  I  also  acknowledge  your  rights 
and  my  obligations  under  the  Constitution,  in  regard  to  your  slaves.  I 
confess  I  hate  to  see  the  poor  creatures  hunted  down,  and  caught  and 
carried  back  to  their  stripes  and  unrequited  toil;  but  I  bite  my  lip,  and 
keep  quiet.  In  1841,  you  and  I  had  together  a  tedious,  low-water  trip 
on  a  steamboat  from  Louisville  to  St.  Louis.  You  may  remember,  as  I 
well  do,  that  from  Louisville  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio,  there  were  on 
board  ten  or  a  dozen  slaves,  shackled  together  with  irons.  That  sight 
was  a  continual  torment  to  me,  and  I  see  something  like  it  every  time 
I  touch  the  Ohio,  or  any  other  slave  border.  It  is  not  fair  for  you  to 
assmne  that  I  have  no  interest  in  a  thing  which  has,  and  continually  exer 
cises,  the  power  of  making  me  miserable.  You  ought  rather  to  appre 
ciate  how  much  the  great  body  of  the  people  of  the  North  do  crucify 
their  feelings,  in  order  to  maintain  their  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  and 
the  Union. 

"  I  do  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery,  because  my  judgment  and 
feelings  so  prompt  me ;  and  I  am  under  no  obligations  to  the  contrary. 
If,  for  this,  you  and  I  must  differ,  differ  we  must.  You  say  if  you  were 
President  you  would  send  an  army,  and  hang  the  leaders  of  the  Missouri 
outrages  upon  the  Kansas  elections ;  still,  if  Kansas  fairly  votes  herself 
a  slave  state,  she  must  be  admitted,  or  the  Union  must  be  dissolved. 
But  how  if  she  votes  herself  a  slave  state  unfairly — that  is,  by  the  very 
means  for  which  you  would  hang  men?  Must  sho  still  be  admitted,  or 
10 


146  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  Union  dissolved  ?  That  will  be  the  phase  of  the  question  when  it 
first  becomes  a  practical  one.* 

"  In  your  assumption  that  there  may  be  a  fair  decision  of  the  slavery 
question  in  Kansas,  I  plainly  see  you  and  I  would  differ  about  the  Ne 
braska  law.  I  look  upon  that  enactment  not  as  a  law,  but  as  a  violence^ 
from  the  beginning.  It  was  conceived  in  violence,  passed  in  violence, 
is  maintained  in  violence,  and  is  being  executed  in  violence.  I  say  it 
was  conceived  in  violence,  because  the  destruction  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  under  the  Constitution  was  nothing  less  than  violence.  It  was 
passed  in  violence,  because  it  could  not  have*  passed  at  all  but  for  the 
votes  of  many  members  in  violent  disregard  of  the  known  will  of  theis 
constituents.  It  is  maintained  in  violence,  because  the  elections  since 
clearly  demand  its  repeal,  and  the  demand  is  openly  disregarded. 

"  You  say  men  ought  to  be  hung  for  the  way  they  are  executing  that 
law ;  and  I  say  the  way  it  is  being  executed  is  quite  as  good  as  any  of 
its  antecedents.  It  is  being  executed  in  the  precise  way  which  was  in 
tended  from  the  first,  else,  why  does  no  Nebraska  man  express  aston 
ishment  or  condemnation  V  Poor  Eeeder  has  been  the  only  man  who 
has  been  silly  enough  to  believe  that  anything  like  fairness  was  ever 
intended,  and  he  has  been  bravely  undeceived, 

"  That  Kansas  will  form  a  slave  constitution,  and  with  it,  will  ask  to 
be  admitted  into  the  Union,  I  take  to  be  an  already  settled  question, 
and  so  settled  by  the  very  means  you  so  pointedly  condemn.  By  every 
principle  of  law  ever  held  by  any  court,  North  or  South,  every  negro 
taken  to  Kansas  is  free  ;  and  in  utter  disregard  of  this — in  the  spirit  of 
violence  merely — that  beautiful  legislature  gravely  passes  a  law  to  hang 
men  who  shall  venture  to  inform  a  negro  of  his  legal  rights.  This  is 
the  substance  and  real  object  of  the  law.  If,  like  Haman,  they  should 
hang  upon  the  gallows  of  their  own  building,  I  shall  not  be  among  the 
mourners  for  their  fate. 

"  In  my  humble  sphere,  I  shall  advocate  the  restoration  of  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  so  long  as  Kansas  remains  a  territory ;  and  when,  by 
all  these  foul  means  it  seeks  to  come  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  state,  I 
shall  oppose  it.  I  am  very  loth,  in  any  case,  to  withhold  my  assent  to 
the  enjoyment  of  property  acquired  or  located  in  good  faith ;  but  I  do 
not  admit  that  good  faith  in  taking  a  negro  to  Kansas,  to  be  held  in 
slavery,  is  a  possibility  with  any  man.  Any  man. who  has  sense  enough 
to  be  the  controller  of  his  own  property,  has  too  much  sense  to  misun 
derstand  the  outrageous  character  of  the  whole  Nebraska  business. 

"  But  I  digress.  In  my  opposition  to  the  admission  of  Kansas,  I  shall 
have  some  company;  but  we  may  be  beaten.  If  we  are,  I  shall  not,  on 
that  account,  attempt  to  dissolve  the  Union.  I  think  it  probable,  how- 

*This  confident  prediction  was  made  two  years  before  the  Leoompton  Constitution 
was  framed. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  147 

ever,  that  we  shall  be  beaten.  Standing  as  a  unit  among  yourselves, 
you  can,  directly,  and  indirectly,  bribe  enough  of  our  men  to  carry  the 
day — as  you  could  on  an  open  proposition  to  establish  monarchy.  Get 
hold  of  some  man  in  the  North  whose  position  and  ability  are  such  that 
he  can  make  the  support  of  your  measure — whatever  it  may  be — a  dem 
ocratic  party  necessity,  and  the  thing  is  done. 

"  Apropos  of  this,  let  me  tell  you  an  anecdote.  Douglas  introduced 
the  Nebraska  bill  in  January.  In  February,  afterwards,  there  was  a 
called  session  of  the  Illinois  legislature.  Of  the  one  hundred  members 
comprising  the  two  branches  of  that  body,  about  seventy  were  democrats. 
The  latter  held  a  caucus  in  which  the  Nebraska  bill  was  talked  of,  if 
not  formally  discussed.  It  was  thereby  discovered  that  just  three,  and 
no  more,  were  in  favor  of  the  measure.  In  a  day  or  two,  Douglas' 
orders  came  on  to  have  resolutions  passed,  approving  the  bill,  and  they 
were  passed  by  large  majorities  ! ! !  The  truth  of  this  is  vouched  for  by 
a  bolting  democratic  member.  The  masses,  too,  democratic  as  well  as 
whig,  were  even  more  unanimous  against  it,  but  as  soon  as  the  party 
necessity  of  supporting  it  became  apparent,  the  way  the  democracy 
began  to  see  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  it  was  perfectly  astonishing. 

"  You  say  if  Kansas  fairly  votes  herself  a  free  state,  as  a  Christian 
you  will  rather  rejoice  at  it.  All  decent  slaveholders  talk  that  way,  and 
I  do  not  doubt  their  candor.  But  they  never  vote  that  way.  Although, 
in  a  private  letter  or  conversation  you  will  express  your  preference  that 
Kansas  shall  be  free,  you  would  vote  for  no  man  for  Congress  who  would 
say  the  same  thing  publicly.  No  such  man  could  be  elected,  from  any 
district,  of  any  slave  state.  You  think  Stringfellow  &  Co.  ought  to  be 
hung ;  and  yet  you  will  vote  for  the  exact  type  and  representation  of 
Stringfellow.  The  slave-breeders  and  slave-traders  are  a  small  and  de 
tested  class  among  you,  and  yet  in  politics  they  dictate  the  course  of 
all  of  you,  and  are  as  completely  your  masters  as  you  are  the  masters 
of  your  own  negroes. 

"  Yon  inquire  where  I  now  stand.  That  is  a  disputed  point.  I  think 
I  am  a  whig;  but  others  say  there  are  no  whigs,  and  that  I  am  an  abo 
litionist.  When  I  was  in  Washington,  I  voted  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
as  good  as  forty  times,  and  I  never  heard  of  any  attempt  to  imwhig  me 
for  that.  I  now  do  no  more  than  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery.  I 
am  not  a  Know-Nothing, — that  is  certain.  How  could  I  be?  How  can 
any  one  who  abhors  the  oppression  of  the  negroes  be  in  favor  of  de 
grading  classes  of  white  people  ?  Our  progress  in  degeneracy  appears 
to  me  to  be  pretty  rapid.  As  a  nation,  we  began  by  declaring  that  'all 
men  are  created  equal.'  We  now  practically  read  it '  all  men  are  created 
equal  except  negroes.'  When  the  Know-Nothings  get  control,  it  will 
read,  'all  men  are  created  equal  except  negroes  and  foreigners  and 
Catholics.'  WTicn  it  comes  to  that,  I  should  prefer  emigrating  to  some 


148  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN". 

country  where  they  make  no  pretense  of  loving  liberty — to  Russia  for 
instance,  where  despotism  can  be  taken  pure,  and  without  the  base  alloy 
of  hypocrisy. 

"  Your  friend  forever, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

This  letter,  written  with  perfect  freedom  to  an  old  personal 
friend  attached  to  the  interests  of  slavery  in  a  slave  state, 
gives  with  wonderful  clearness  the  state  of  the  slavery  ques 
tion  at  the  time,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  views  and  feelings. 
Events  justified  the  writer's  judgment,  and  verified  his  pre 
dictions.  Mr.  Lincoln  still  considered  himself  a  whig.  The 
name  was  one  he  loved,  and  the  old  party  associations  were  very 
precious  to  him.  But  he  was  passing  through  the  weaning 
process,  and  was  realizing  more  and  more,  with  the  passage 
of  every  month,  that  there  could  be  no  resuscitation  of  the 
dead  or  dying  organization.  The  interests  of  slavery  had 
severed  from  it  forever  that  portion  that  had  made  it  a  pow 
erful  national  party.  It  could  not  extend  itself  an  inch  south 
of  Mason's  and  Dixon's  line.  The  slavery  question  was  the 
great  question.  Opposition  to  the  extension  and  encroach 
ments  of  slavery  was  sectional,  and  any  party  which  exer 
cised  this  opposition,  however  broad  its  views  might  be,  was 
necessarily  sectional.  Mr.  Lincoln's  logical  mind  soon  dis 
covered  this,  and  accordingly  we  find  him,  May  29th,  1856, 
attending  a  convention  at  Bloomington,  of  those  who  were 
opposed  to  the  democratic  party.  Here,  and  with  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  powerful  assistance,  the  republican  party  of  Illinois  was 
organized,  a  platform  adopted,  a  state  ticket  nominated,  and 
delegates  were  appointed  to  the  National  Eepublican  Conven 
tion  in  Philadelphia,  which  was  to  be  held  on  the  seventeenth 
of  the  following  month. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  from  the  date  of  this  meeting,  he 
felt  himself  more  a  free  man  in  politics  than  ever  before. 
His  hatred  of  slavery  had  been  constantly  growing,  and  now 
he  was  the  member  of  a  party  whose  avowed  purpose  it  was 
to  resist  the  extension  of  slavery,  and  to  shut  it  up  in  the  ter 
ritory  where  it  held  its  only  rights  under  the  Constitution. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  149 

The  speech  which  he  made  on  this  occasion  was  one  of  distin 
guished  power  and  eloquence.  Mr.  Scripps,  in  the  little 
sketch  of  his  life  to  which  an  allusion  has  already  been  made 
in  this  volume,  says:  "Never  was  an  audience  more  com 
pletely  electrified  by  human  eloquence.  Again  and  again 
during  the  progress  of  its  delivery,  they  sprang  to  their  feet 
and  upon  the  benches,  and  testified  by  long  continued  shouts 
and  the  waving  of  hats,  how  deeply  the  speaker  had  wrought 
upon  their  minds  and  hearts.  It  fused  the  mass  of  hitherto 
incongruous  elements  into  perfect  homogeneity,  and  from  that 
day  to  the  present  they  have  worked  together  in  harmonious 
and  fraternal  union. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  now  regarded,  not  only  by  the  republicans 
of  Illinois,  but  by  all  the  western  states,  as  their  first  man. 
Accordingly  they  presented  his  name  to  the  national  conven 
tion  as  their  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency/  On  the  in 
formal  ballot,  he  received  one  hundred  and  ten  votes  to  two 
hundred  and  fifty-nine  for  Mr.  Dayton.  This,  of  course,  de 
cided  the  matter  against  him,  but  the  vote  was  a  compliment 
ary  one,  and  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  formal  introduction  to  the 
nation.  Mr.  Lincoln  labored  with  his  accustomed  zeal  during 
the  campaign  for  Fremont  and  Dayton,  the  republican  nomi 
nees,  and  had  the  pleasure,  at  the  end  of  the  canvass,  of  find 
ing  the  state  revolutionized.  Colonel  William  H.  Bissell,  the 
opposition  candidate  for  Governor,  was  elected  by  a  notable 
majority,  although  there  were  men  enough  who"' were  not 
aware  that  the  whig  party  was  dead  to  give  the  electoral  vote 
to  Mr.  Buchanan,  through  their  support  of  Mr.  Fillmore. 

A  little  incident  occurred  during  the  campaign  that  illus 
trated  Mr.  Lincoln's  -readiness  in  turning  a  political  point. 
He  was  making  a  speech  at  Charleston,  Coles  County,  when 
a  voice  called  out,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  is  it  true  that  you  entered 
this  state  barefoot,  driving  a  yoke  of  oxen? "4  Mr.  Lincoln 
paused  for  full  half  a  minute,  as  if  considering  whether  he 
should  notice  such  cruel  impertinence,  and  then  said  that  he 
thought  he  could  prove  the  fact  by  at  least  a  dozen  men  in 
the  crowd,  any  one  of  whom  was  more  respectable  than  his 


150  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

questioner.  But  the  question  seemed  to  inspire  him,  and  he 
went  on  to  show  what  free  institutions  had  done  for  himself, 
and  to  exhibit  the  evils  of  slavery  to  the  white  man  wherever 
it  existed,  and  asked  if  it  was  not  natural  that  he  should  hate 
slavery,  and  agitate  against  it.  "Yes,"  said  he,  "we  will 
speak  for  freedom  and  against  slavery,  as  long  as  the  Consti 
tution  of  our  country  guarantees  free  speech,  until  everywhere 
on  this  wide  land,  the  sun  shall  shine  and  the  rain  shall  fall 
and  the  wind  shall  blow  upon  no  man  who  goes  forth  to  unre 
quited  toil." 

From  this  time  to  the  close  of  his  life,  he  was  almost  en 
tirely  absorbed  by  political  affairs.  He  still  took  charge  of 
important  cases  in  court,  and  practiced  his  profession  at  inter 
vals  ;  but  he  was  regarded  as  a  political  man,  and  had  many 
responsibilities  thrown  upon  him  by  the  new  organization. 
During  the  summer  succeeding  the  presidential  canvass,  and 
after  Mr.  Buchanan  had  taken  his  seat,  Mr.  Douglas  was  in 
vited  by  the  grand  jury  of  the  United  States  District  Court 
for  Southern  Illinois,  to  deliver  a  speech  at  Springfield,  when 
the  court  was  in  session.  In  that  speech,  the  senator  showed 
the  progress  he  had  made  in  his  departure  from  the  doctrines 
of  the  fathers,  by  announcing  that  the  framers  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  when  they  asserted  that  "all  men  are 
created  equal,"  only  meant  to  say  that  "British  subjects  on 
this  continent  were  equal  to  British  subjects  born  and  residing 
in  Great  Britain."  Mr.  Lincoln  was  invited  by  a  large  num 
ber  of  citizens  to  reply  to  this  speech,  and  did  so.  After 
showing  in  his  own  quiet  and  ingenious  way  the  absurdity  of 
this  assumption  of  Judge  Douglas,  telling  his  auditors  that, 
as  they  were  preparing  to  celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July,  and 
would  read  the  Declaration,  he  would  like  to  have  them  read 
it  in  Judge  Douglas'  way,  viz :  "We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident,  that  all  British  subjects  who  were  on  this  conti 
nent  eighty-one  years  ago,  were  created  equal  to  all  British 
subjects  born  and  then  residing  in  Great  Britain," — he  said: 
"  And  now  I  appeal  to  all — to  democrats  as  well  as  others :  are 
you  really  willing  that  the  Declaration  shall  thus  be  frittered 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLX.  151 

away? — thus  left  no  more,  at  most,  than  an  interesting  memo 
rial  of  the  dead  past  ? — thus  shorn  of  its  vitality  and  its  prac 
tical  value,  and  left  without  the  germ  or  even  the  suggestion 
of  the  inalienable  rights  of  man  in  it?"  Then  Mr.  Lincoln 
added  his  opinion  as  to  what  the  authors  of  the  Declaration 
intended;  and  it  has  probably  never  been  stated  with  a  more 
catholic  spirit,  or  in  choicer  terms : 

"  I  think  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument  intended  to  include 
all  men ;  but  they  did  not  intend  to  declare  all  men  equal  in  all  respects 
They  did  not  mean  to  say  all  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intellect,  moral 
developments,  or  social  capacity.  They  defined  with  tolerable  distinct 
ness  in  what  respects  they  did  consider  all  men  equal — equal  in  certain 
inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  hap 
piness.  This  they  said  and  this  they  meant.  They  did  not  mean  to 
assert  the  obvious  untruth  that  all  were  then  actually  enjoying  that 
equality,  nor  yet  that  they  were  about  to  confer  it  upon  them.  In  fact, 
they  had  no  power  to  confer  such  a  boon.  They  meant  simply  to  de 
clare  the  right,  so  that  the  enforcement  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as 
circumstances  should  permit.  They  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim 
for  free  society,  which  should  be  familiar  to  all  and  revered  by  all ;  con 
stantly  looked  to,  constantly  labored  for,  and,  even  though  never  per 
fectly  attained,  constantly  approximated,  and  thereby  constantly  spread 
ing  and  deepening  its  influence,  and  augmenting  the  happiness  and  value 
of  life  to  all  people  of  all  colors  everywhere." 

The  project  of  making  Kansas  a  slave  state  was  in  full 
progress.  The  event  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  so  distinctly 
prophesied — the  formation  of  a  pro-slavery  constitution  by 
unfair  means  and  alien  agents — was  in  full  view;  and  those 
who  were  interested  in  it  did  their  best  to  prepare  the  minds 
of  the  people  for  it.  Political  morality  seemed  at  its  lowest 
ebb.  A  whole  party  was  bowing  to  the  behests  of  slavery, 
and  those  who  were  opposed  to  the  institution  and  the  power 
born  of  it  had  become  stupefied  in  the  presence  of  its  bold 
assumptions  and  rapid  advances.  People  had  ceased  to  be 
surprised  at  any  of  its  claims,  and  any  exhibition  of  its  spirit 
and  policy.  If  Mr.  Buchanan  had  any  conscientious  scruples, 
they  were  easily  overborne,  and  he  lent  himself  to  the  schemes 
of  the  plotters.  A  pro-slavery  legislature  was  elected  mainly 


152  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

by  non-residents,  at  an  election  in  which  the  free  state  men, 
who  numbered  three-fourths  of  the  entire  population,  refused 
to  participate,  on  account  of  illegality.  This  legislature, 
meeting  at  Lecompton,  passed  an  act  providing  for  the  election 
of  a  convention  to  form  a  state  constitution,  preparatory  to 
asking  an  admission  into  the  Union.  In  the  election  of  this 
convention,  the  free  state  men  took  no  part,  on  the  ground 
that  the  legislature  which  ordered  it  had  no  legal  authority. 
About  two  thousand  votes  were  cast,  while  the  legal  voters 
in  the  territory  numbered  more  than  ten  thousand.  The  Le 
compton  Convention  framed,  of  course,  a  pro-slavery  consti 
tution.  It  is  not  necessary  to  recount  the  means  by  which 
this  constitution  was  subsequently  overthrown,  and  one  pro 
hibiting  slavery  substituted  in  its  place.  It  is  sufficient  for 
the  present  purpose  to  state  that  upon  the  promulgation  of  the 
constitution  formed  at  Lecompton,  Robert  J.  Walker,  then 
Governor  of  Kansas,  went  immediately  to  Washington  to  re 
monstrate  against  its  adoption  by  Congress,  and  that  before 
he  could  reach  the  capitol  it  had  received  the  approval  of  the 
President. 

These  facts  have  place  here  to  give  the  basis  of  the  political 
relations  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Douglas ;  for  they  were 
approaching  their  great  struggle.  The  senatorial  term  of  Mr. 
Douglas  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  he  wished  to  be  indorsed 
by  the  people  of  Illinois,  and  returned  to  the  Senate.  The 
events  of  the  previous  year  had  shown  him  that  a  great  polit 
ical  revolution  was  in  progress,  and  that  his  seat  was  actually 
in  danger.  He  saw  what  was  going  on  in  Kansas,  and  knew 
that  the  iniquities  in  progress  there  w^ould  be  laid  at  his  door. 
It  was  he  who,  in  a  time  of  peace,  had  opened  the  flood-gates 
of  agitation.  It  was  he  who  had  given  to  the  slave-power 
what  it  had  not  asked  for,  but  could  not  consistently  refuse. 
It  was  he  who  had  gratuitously  offered  the  slave-power  the 
privilege  of  making  territory  forever  set  apart  to  freedom  ita 
own,  if  it  could.  He  had  divided  his  own  party  in  his  own 
state,  and  w^as  losing  his  confidence  as  to  his  own  political 
future.  That  he  knew  just  what  was  coming  in  Kansas,  and 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  153 

knew  what  the  effect  would  be  upon  himself,  is  evident  in  the 
speech  he  made  at  Springfield,  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  reply  to 
which  a  passage  has  already  been  quoted.  In  this  he  under 
took  to  shift  to  the  shoulders  of  the  republican  party  the  bur 
den  he  felt  to  be  pressing  upon  his  own.  Speaking  of  Kansas, 
he  said :  "  The  law  under  which  her  delegates  are  about  to  be 
elected  is  believed  to  be  just  and  fair  in  all  its  objects  and  pro 
visions.  *  *  *  If  any  portion  of  the  inhabitants,  acting  under 
the  advice  of  political  leaders  in  distant  states,  shall  choose  to 
absent  themselves  from  the  polls,  and  withhold  their  votes  with 
the  view  of  leaving  the  free  state  democrats  in  the  minority, 
and  thus  securing  a  pro-slavery  constitution  in  opposition  to 
the  wishes  of  a  majority  of  the  people  living  under  it,  let  the 
responsibility  rest  on  those  who,  for  partisan  purposes,  will  sac 
rifice  the  principles  they  profess  to  cherish  and  promote.  Upon 
them  and  upon  the  political  party  for  whose  benefit  and  under 
the  direction  of  whose  leaders  they  act,  let  the  blame  be  visited 
of  fastening  upon  the  people  of  a  new  state  institutions  repug 
nant  to  their  feelings  and  in  violation  of  their  wishes." 

In  a  subsequent  passage  of  this  same  speech,  he  amplifies 
these  points,  and  both  passages  show  that  he  knew  the  nature 
of  the  constitution  that  would  be  framed,  knew  that  the 
free  state  men  would  not  vote  at  all  because  they  believed 
the  movement  was  an  illegal  one,  and  knew  that  he  and  his 
party  would  be  held  responsible  for  the  outrage.  It  is  further 
to  be  said  that,  by  his  words  on  this  occasion,  he  fully  com 
mitted  himself,  in  advance,  to  whatever  the  Lecompton  Con 
vention  might  do.  "The  present  election  law  in  Kansas  is 
acknowledged  to  be  fair  and  just,"  he  says.  "Kansas  is  about 
to  speak  for  herself,"  he  declares.  By  these  words  alone,  he 
was  morally  committed  to  whatever  might  be  the  conclusions 
of  the  convention.  This  is  to  be  remembered,  for  Mr.  Doug 
las  soon  found  that  he  could  not  shift  the  burden  of  the  Kan 
sas  iniquity  upon  the  opposition,  and  that  his  only  hope  of  a 
re-election  to  the  senate  depended  upon  his  taking  issue  with 
the  administration  on  this  very  case,  and  becoming  the  cham 
pion  of  the  anti-Lecompton  men. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

ONE  of  the  most  remarkable  passages  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
history  was  his  contest  with  Senator  Douglas,  in  1858,  for  the 
seat  in  the  United  States  Senate  which  was  soon  to  be  vacated 
by  the  expiration  of  the  term  for  which  the  latter  was  elected. 
Frequent  allusion  has  been  made  to  this  already;  but  before 
proceeding  to  its  description  something  further  should  be  said 
of  Mr.  Douglas  himself. 

Mr.  Douglas  was  but  little  more  than  twenty  years  of  age 
when,  in  1833,  he  entered  Illinois.  He  was  poor — penniless, 
indeed.  The  first  money  he  earned  in  the  state  was  as  the 
clerk  of  an  auction  sale.  His  next  essay  was  in  teaching 
school.  He  began  to  practice  law  during  the  second  year, 
and  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  was  elected  Attorney  General 
of  the  state.  He  resigned  this  office  in  1835,  and  was  elected 
a  member  of  the  legislature.  It  was  here  that  he  and  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  met  for  the  first  time.  In  1837,  before  he  was 
twenty-five  years  old,  he  received  the  democratic  nomination 
for  Congress,  and  was  only  beaten  by  a  majority  of  five  votes. 
In  1840,  he  was  appointed  secretary  of  the  state  of  Illinois, 
and  in  1843  he  was  elected  to  Congress,  and  re-elected  in 
1844  and  1846.  Before  he  took  his  seat  under  the  last  elec 
tion,  he  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate;  and  his 
second  term  of  service  in  this  august  body  was  about  expiring 
at  the  present  point  of  this  history. 

The  career  of  Mr.  Douglas  had  been  one  of  almost  unin- 

o 

terrupted  political  success.     He  was  the  recognized  leader  of 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  155 

the  democratic  party  of  Illinois,  and  had  been  known  and  felt 
as  a  positive  power  in  national  legislation.  He  had  very  de 
cided  opinions  upon  all  the  great  questions  passed  upon  by 
Congress,  and,  though  not  unfrequently  at  variance  with  the 
administrations  he  had  himself  assisted  to  place  in  power,  his 
influence  was  great  in  whatever  direction  he  might  choose  to 
exert  it.  He  accomplished  much  in  establishing  and  nourish 
ing  the  prosperity  of  Illinois.  No  man  did  so  much  as  Mr. 
Douglas  for  securing  those  magnificent  grants  of  land  which 
contributed  to  the  development  of  his  adopted  state.  To  the 
material  interests  of  Illinois,  and  the  preservation  of  the  power 
of  the  democratic  party  in  that  state,  he  was  thoroughly  de 
voted  ;  and  that  party  honored  him  writh  its  entire  confidence 
and  almost  unquestioning  support.  He  was  their  first  man ; 
and  they  bestowed  upon  him,  during  his  life,  more  honor  than 
they  ever  gave  to  any  other  man  living  on  their  territory. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  watched  this  man,  with  admiration  for  his 
tact  and  respect  for  his  power  with  the  people.  He  had  seen 
him  winning  the  highest  honors  in  their  gift,  and,  if  he  did 
not  envy  him,  it  was  not  because  he  was  not  ambitious.  It 
was  because  nothing  so  mean  as  envy  could  have  place  in  him. 
That  he  regarded  Mr.  Douglas  as  an  unscrupulous  man  in  the 
use  of  means  for  securing  his  ambitious  ends,  there  is  no 
doubt;  and  although  he  would  have  refused  honor  and  office 
on  the  terms  on  which  Mr.  Douglas  received  them,  he  was 
much  impressed  by  the  dignities  with  which  the  Senator  was 
invested,  and  felt  that  the  power  he  held  was  a  precious,  aye, 
a  priceless,  possession. 

From  the  original  manuscript  of  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
speeches,  these  words  are  transferred  to  this  biography: 
"Twenty-two  years  ago,  Judge  Douglas  and  I  first  became 
acquainted.  "We  were  both  young  then — he  a  trifle  younger 
than  I.  Even  then  we  were  both  ambitious, — I,  perhaps, 
quite  as  much  so  as  he.  With  me,  the  race  of  ambition  has 
been  a  failure — a  flat  failure;  with  him,  it  has  been  one  of 
splendid  success.  His  name  fills  the  nation,  and  is  not  un 
known  even  in  foreign  lands.  I  affect  no  contempt  for  the 


156  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

high  eminence  he  has  reached.  So  reached  that  the  oppressed 
of  my  species  might  have  shared  with  me  in  the  elevation,  I 
would  rather  stand  on  that  eminence  than  wear  the  richest 
crown  that  ever  pressed  a  monarch's  brow." 

This  extract  touches  the  points  of  similarity  between  the 
two  men,  and  their  points  of  difference.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  far 
from  insensible  to  the  honors  of  Mr.  Douglas'  position;  but 
he  would  not  have  them  at  the  price  Mr.  Douglas  had  paid  for 
them.  The  oppressed  of  his  species  had  not  shared  with  Mr. 
Douglas  in  his  elevation.  The  slave  had  had  none  of  his 
consideration;  and  he  was  in  league  with  the  slave's  oppres 
sor.  It  would  not  have  been  pleasant  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  wear 
the  honors  of  Mr.  Douglas,  if,  with  them,  he  had  been  obliged 
to  carry  the  responsibility  of  extending  or  giving  latitude  and 
lease  to  an  institution  which  made  chattels  of  men.  Mr. 
Douglas  looked  upon  slavery  either  with  indifference  or  ap 
proval.  He  had  publicly  said  that  he  did  not  care  whether 
slavery  was  "voted  up  or  voted  down"  in  the  territories. 
Mr.  Lincoln  regarded  slavery  as  a  great  moral,  social  and 
political  wrong.  Here  was  the  vital  difference  between  the 
two,  recognized  as  such  by  Mr.  Lincoln  himself. 

After  the  adoption  of  the  Lecompton  Constitution  in  Kan 
sas,  Mr.  Douglas  having  foreseen  its  character,  and  having 
virtually  committed  himself  to  it  in  advance — having,  indeed, 
undertaken  to  make  the  republican  party  morally  responsible 
for  its  existence  and  adoption,  a  change  seems  to  have  come 
over,  his  opinions.  Before  he  departed  for  Washington,  to 
attend  the  session  of  1857  and  1858,  it  was  whispered  that  he 
was  about  to  break  with  the  administration  on  the  Lecompton 
business.  -  It  is  always  pleasant  to  give  men  credit  for  the 
best  motives ;  and  those  under  which  he  acted  may  have  been 
the  best.  ;4  To  oppose  that  constitution  was  certainly  not  in 
consistent  with  his  pet  doctrine  "popular  sovereignty"  when 
taken  by  itself,  for  nothing  was  more  easily  demonstrable  than 
the  fact  that  that  constitution  was  not  the  act  and  deed  of  the 
people  of  Kansas — that  it  was  in  no  sense  an  expression  of 
their  will.^»  While  this  is  true,  it  is  proper  to  remember  that 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN*  157 

Mr.  Douglas  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  that  he  could  not 
carry  the  burden  of  the  Lecompton  Constitution  through  the 
canvass  for  the  senatorial  prize,  then  imminent.  The  outrage 
was  too  flagrant  to  be  ignored,  and  the  facts  too  notorious  to 
be  disputed.  He  was  also  shrewd  enough  to  see  that  his  op 
position  to  the  Lecompton  fraud  would  take  from  the  republi 
can  party  some  of  its  best  capital,  and  greatly  distract  the 
opposition  in  their  efforts  to  defeat  him. 

During  that  session  of  Congress  Mr.  Douglas  fought  a  gal 
lant  and  manly  fight  against  the  administration  on  the  Le 
compton  question,  and,  on  that  question,  voted  and  labored 
with  the  republicans.  It  was  a  bold  step.  Without  Mr. 
Douglas,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  Lecompton  Constitution 
would  have  been  impossible.  He  voluntarily  threw  open  the 
territory  to  this  outrage.  Then  he  tried  to  kill  his  own  legiti 
mate  child.  He  forsook  the  men  whom  he  had  led  into  the 
great  iniquity.  The  republicans  were  grateful  for  his  aid,  and 
were  naturally  drawn  to  him  in  sympathy  because,  for  his 
efforts  on  behalf  of  justice  in  Kansas,  he  had  incurred  the 
enmity  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  who  was  regarded  as  a  most  willing 
tool  in  the  hands  of  the  slave  power. 

The  democratic  state  convention  of  Illinois  assembled  on 
the  21st  of  April,  1858,  and  endorsed  Mr.  Douglas  in  his 
position  as  an  anti-Lecompton  man.  They  placed  a  state 
ticket  in  the  field,  and  engineered  the  canvass  with  such  skill 
and  vigor  that  the  administration,  through  its  office-holders, 
could  make  no  headway  against  them.  The  power  of  Mr. 
Douglas  over  the  politicians  and  masses  in  his  own  state,  was 
never  better  illustrated  than  during  this  campaign,  when  all 
the  patronage  of  the  federal  government  could  do  nothing  to 
defeat  him.  Before  the  close  of  the  session,  Mr.  Douglas 
went  home  to  look  after  his  interests,  and  to  prepare  for  the 
great  campaign  of  his  life. 

A  large  number  of  republicans  in  the  eastern  states  who  had 
not  known  Mr.  Douglas  at  home,  and  who  had  witnessed  his 
bold  and  gallant  fight  with  the  administration  and  the  slave- 
power  in  the  senate,  expressed  the  wish  that  their  friends  in 


158  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Illinois  might  find  it  in  the  line  of  their  duty  to  aid  in  return 
ing  him  to  the  senate.  The  republicans  of  Illinois,  however, 
felt  that  they  knew  the  man  better,  and  that  their  duty  did 
not  lie  in  that  direction  at  all.  They  urged  that  Mr.  Douglas 
did  not  agree  with  them  in  a  single  point  of  doctrine — that  he 
had  differed  with  the  administration  merely  on  a  question  of 
fact,  whether  the  Lecompton  Constitution  was  the  act  and  deed 
of  the  people  of  Kansas.  They  averred  that  he  adhered  to  the 
outrageous  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott 
case — that  a  negro  cannot  sue  in  a  United  States  court,  and 
that  Congress  cannot  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories — and 
that  they  dared  not  trust  Mr.  Douglas.  To  this  it  was  re 
plied  that  Mr.  Douglas  was  coming  over  to  the  republican  party 
as  fast  as  he  could  carry  his  followers  with  him,  and  that  his 
extraordinary  hold  upon  the  masses  of  the  democratic  party 
at  the  North  would  enable  him  to  bring  to  the  republican 
ranks  a  reinforcement  \vhich  would  prove  irresistible  at  the 
approaching  presidential  election.  The  rejoinder  of  the  Illi 
nois  republicans  was  that  the  probability  of  any  sincere  change 
of  faith  in  Mr.  Douglas  was  too  remote  and  uncertain  to  war 
rant  them  in  abandoning  an  organization  which  had  been 
formed  to  advance  a  great  and  just  cause,  and  which,  once 
dissolved,  could  not  be  re-formed  in  time  to  render  efficient 
service  in  the  election  of  1860.  Quite  a  controversy  grew 
out  of  the  differences  between  the  Illinois  republicans  and 
their  eastern  advisers,  and  no  small  degree  of  bitterness  was 
engendered.  The  party  in  Illinois  was  nearly  a  unit  in  its 
views,  but  the  controversy  had  undoubtedly  the  influence  to 
loosen  the  hold  of  the  organization  upon  some  of  its  members. 
The  effect  was  temporary,  however,  for  the  issues  of  the  cam 
paign  were  so  thoroughly-discussed,  and  the  discussions  them 
selves  were  so  generally  listened  to,  or  read  in  the  journals 
of  the  day,  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  Mr.  Douglas  gained 
any  appreciable  advantage  from  the  controversy,  or  the  sym 
pathy  of  republicans  in  other  states. 

The  republican  state  convention  met  at  Springfield  on  the 
sixteenth  of  June,  nearly  two  months  after  the  assembling  of 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  159 

the  democratic  convention.  Aside  from  the  senatorial  ques 
tion,  there  was  but  little  interest  in  the  proceedings.  For 
state  officers,  only  a  treasurer  and  a  superintendent  of  public 
instruction  were  to  be  nominated,  and,  besides  these  officers, 
only  the  members  of  a  legislature  were  to  be  elected.  Nearly 
six  hundred  delegates  were  present  in  the  convention,  and 
they,  with  their  alternates,  completed  a  round  thousand  of 
earnest  men,  gathered  from  all  parts  of  the  state.  The  fifth 
resolution  adopted  on  this  occasion  covers  the  grand  issue 
made  with  Judge  Douglas. 

"  That  while  we  deprecate  all  interference  on  the  part  of  political 
Organizations  with  the  judiciary,  if  such  action  is  limited  to  its  appro 
priate  sphere,  yet  we  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  our  'condemnation 
of  the  principles  and  tendencies  of  the  extra-judicial  opinions  of  a  ma 
jority  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  the 
matter  of  Dred  Scott,  wherein  the  political  heresy  is  put  forth  that  the 
federal  constitution  extends  slavery  into  all  the  territories  of  the  Re 
public,  and  so  maintains  it  that  neither  Congress  nor  the  people  through 
the  territorial  legislature  can  by  law  abolish  it.  We  hold  that  Congress 
possesses  sovereign  power  over  the  territories,  and  has  the  right  to 
govern  and  control  them  whilst  they  remain  in  a  territorial  condition, 
and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  general  government  to  protect  the  terri 
tories  from  the  curse  of  slavery,  and  to  preserve  the  public  domain  for 
Hie  occupation  of  free  men  and  free  labor;  and  we  declare  that  no 
power  on  earth  can  carry  and  maintain  slavery  in  the  states  against  the 
will  of  their  people  and  the  provisions  of  their  constitutions  and  laws; 
and  we  fully  indorse  the  recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  our 
own  state,  which  declares  that  property  in  persons  is  repugnant  to  the 
Constitution  and  laws  of  Illinois,  and  that  all  persons  within  its  juris 
diction  are  presumed  to  be  free,  and  that  slavery,  where  it  exists,  is  a 
municipal  regulation,  without  any  extra-territorial  operation." 

If  there  were  men  in  the  convention  who  had  at  first,  been 
affected  by  the  representations  of  the  republicans  in  the  east 
ern  states,  the  action  of  the  democratic  convention  which  met 
in  April  had  restored  their  determination  to  stand  by  their 
party  and  its  candidates.  That  convention  had  denounced 
the  republicans,  had  indorsed  the  old  democratic  platform  of 
the  party  adopted  at  Cincinnati  in  national  convention,  and, 
while  it  approved  the  course  of  Senator  Douglas,  failed  to 


160  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

say  one  word  in  condemnation  of  the  course  and  principles, 
or,  rather,  lack  of  principles,  of  Mr.  Buchanan  and  his  ad 
ministration.  The  republican  convention  had  hardly  assem 
bled  before  it  was  discovered  that  there  was  entire  unanimity 
for  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  their  nominee  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Douglas. 
When  a  banner  from  Chicago  was  borne  into  the  convention, 
inscribed  with  the  words — "  Cook  County  for  Abraham  Lin 
coln  " — the  whole  convention  rose  to  its  feet,  and  gave  three 
cheers  for  the  candidate  whom  it  was  proposed  to  place  in  the 
field  in  opposition  to  the  champion  of  "  popular  sovereignty." 
That  the  convention  was  embarrassed  and  doubtful  as  to  re 
sults,  there  is  no  question.  Mr.  Douglas  had  the  sympathy  of 
many  republicans  abroad,  he  had  attacked  a  hated  adminis 
tration  with  great  vigor  and  persistence,  he  had  the  enmity 
of  that  administration,  and,  in  the  state,  he  had  the  advantage 
of  an  unjust  apportionment  of  legislative  districts,  by  which 
not  less  than  ninety-three  thousand  people  were  virtually  dis 
franchised.*  Though  it  was  not  according  to  the  wish  of 
many  of  the  members  of  the  convention  to  make  a  formal 
nomination  for  the  senate,  yet,  as  Mr.  Douglas  had  already 
declared  that  it  was  the  intention  to  use  Mr.  Lincoln's  name 
during  the  canvass,  and  to  adopt  another  name  in  the  legisla 
ture,  the  following  resolution  was  brought  forward,  and  unani 
mously  adopted : 

"That  Hon.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  is  our  first  and  only  choice  fbr 
United  States  Senator,  to  fill  the  vacancy  about  to  be  created  by  the 
expiration  of  Mr.  Douglas'  term  of  office." 

The  anxiety  of  the  convention  to  see  and  hear  their  chosen 
man  and  champion  was  intense ;  and  frequent  calls  were  macte 
for  him  during  the  day.  That  Mr.  Lincoln  expected  the 
nomination,  and  had  prepared  himself  for  it,  is  evident.  It 
was  announced  at  length  that  he  would  address  the  members 
of  the  convention  at  the  State  House  in  the  evening.  During 
the  day,  he  was  busy  in  giving  the  finishing  touches  to  his 
speech,  which  had  been  prepared  with  unusual  care,  every 

*  Scripps,  p.  24. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  161 

sentence  having  been  carefully  weighed.  He  had  put  into  it 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  real  issues  of  the  campaign,  and 
had  laid  out  in  it  the  ground  upon  which  he  proposed  to  stand, 
and  fight  his  battles.  Before  going  to  the  hall,  he  entered  his 
law  office,  where  Mr.  Herndon,  his  partner,  was  sitting,  and 
turned  the  key  against  all  intrusion.  Taking  out  his  manu 
script,  he  read  to  Mr.  Herndon  the  first  paragraph  of  his 
speech,  and  asked  him  for  his  opinion  of  it.  Mr.  Herndon 
replied  that  it  was  all  true,  but  he  doubted  whether  it  was 
good  policy  to  give  it  utterance  at  that  time.  "  That  makes 
no  difference,"  responded  Mr.  Lincoln.  "It  is  the  truth,  and 
the  nation  is  entitled  to  it."  Then,  alluding  to  a  quotation 
which  he  had  made  from  the  Bible — "  A  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand,"  he  said  that  he  wished  to  give  an  illus 
tration  familiar  to  all,  "that  he  who  reads  may  run."  "The 
proposition  is  true,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "and  has  been  true  for 
six  thousand  years,  and  I  will  deliver  it  as  it  is  written." 

At  eight  o'clock,  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
was  filled  to  its  utmost  capacity,  and  when  Mr.  Lincoln  ap 
peared  he  was  received  with  the  most  tumultuous  applause. 
The  speech  which  he  made  on  that  occasion  is  so  full  of  mean 
ing,  so  fraught  with  prophecy,  so  keen  in  its  analysis,  so  irre 
sistible  in  its  logic,  so  profoundly  intelligent  concerning  the 
politics  of  the  time,  and,  withal,  so  condensed  hi  the  expression 
of  every  part,  that  no  proper  idea  can  be  given  of  it  through 
any  description  or  abbreviation.  It  must  be  given  entire. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

"  If  we  could  first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending, 
we  could  better  judge  wheat  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far 
into  the  fifth  year,  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object 
and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under 
the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but 
has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease,  until  a 
d-isis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  *  A  house  divided  against 
Itself  cannot  stand.'  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  perma 
nently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dis 
solved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either 
11 


162  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place 
it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction ;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it  shall 
become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states,  old  as  well  as  new — North  as  well 
as  South. 

"  Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition  ? 

"  Let  any  one  who  doubts,  carefully  contemplate  that  now  almost 
complete  legal  combination — piece  of  machinery,  so  to  speak — com 
pounded  of  the  Nebraska  doctrine,  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Let 
him  consider  not  only  what  work  the  machinery  is  adapted  to  do,  and 
how  well  adapted ;  but  also,  let  him  study  the  history  of  its  construction, 
and  trace,  if  he  can,  or  rather  fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace  the  evidences  of 
design,  and  concert  of  action  among  its  chief  architects,  from  the  be 
ginning. 

"  The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded  from  more  than  -half 
the  states  by  State  Constitutions,  and  from  most  of  the  national  terri 
tory  by  Congressional  prohibition.  Four  days  later,  commenced  the 
struggle  which  ended  in  repealing  that  Congressional  prohibition.  This 
opened  all  the  national  territory  to  slavery,  and  was  the  first  point 
gained. 

"  But,  so  far,  Congress  only  had  acted ;  and  an  indorsement  by  the 
people,  real  or  apparent,  was  indispensable,  to  save  the  point  already 
gained,  and  give  chance  for  more. 

"  This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked ;  but  had  been  provided  for, 
as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable  argument  of  *  squatter  sovereignty,' 
otherwise  called  *  sacred  right  of  self-government,'  which  latter  phrase, 
though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis  of  any  government,  was  so 
perverted  in  this  attempted  use  of  it  as  to  amount  to  just  this  :  That 
if  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another,  no  third  man  shall  be  allowed 
to  object.  That  argument  was  incorporated  into  the  Nebraska  bill 
itself,  in  the  language  which  follows :  *  It  being  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  territory  or  state, 
nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom ;  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly 
free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way, 
subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States/  Then  opened  the 
roar  of  loose  declamation  in  favor  of  '  squatter  sovereignty,"  and  '  sacred 
right  of  self-government.'  '  But,'  said  opposition  members, '  let  us  amend 
the  bill  so  as  to  expressly  declare  that  the  people  of  the  territory  may 
exclude  slavery.'  *  Not  we,'  said  the  friends  of  the  measure ;  and  down 
they  voted  the  amendment. 

"  While  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passing  through  Congress,  a  law  case 
involving  the  question  of  a  negro's  freedom,  by  reason  of  his  owner 
having  voluntarily  taken  him  first  into  a  free  state  and  then  into  a  ter 
ritory  covered  by  the  Congressional  prohibition,  and  held  him  as  a  slave 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLX  163 

for  a  long  time  in  each,  was  passing  through  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court  for  the  District  of  Missouri  5  and  both  .Nebraska  bill  and  lawsuit 
were  brought  to  a  decision  in  the  same  mouth  of  May,  1854.  The  ne 
gro's  name  was  *  Dred  Scott,1  which  name  now  designates  the  decision 
finally  made  in  the  case.  Before  the  then  next  presidential  election, 
the  law  case  came  to,  and  was  argued  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States ,  but  the  decision  of  it  was  deferred  until  after  the  elec 
tion.  Still,  before  the  election,  Senator  Trumbull,  on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate,  requested  the  leading  advocate  of  the  Nebraska  bill  to  state  his 
opinion  whether  the  people  of  a  territory  can  constitutionally  exclude 
slavery  from  their  limits ,-  and  the  latter  answers :  <  That  is  a  question 
for  the  Supreme  Court.' 

"  The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected,  and  the  indorse 
ment,  such  as  it  was,  secured.  That  was  the  second  point  gained.  The 
indorsement,  however,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular  majority  by  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  perhaps,  was  not  overwhelmingly 
reliable  and  satisfactory.  The  outgoing  President,  in  his  last  annual 
message,  as  impressively  as  possible  echoed  back  upon  the  people  the 
weight  and  authority  of  the  indorsement.  The  Supreme  Court  met 
again ;  did  not  announce  their  decision,  but  ordered  a  re-argument. 
The  presidential  inauguration  came)  and  still  no  decision  of  the  court; 
but  the  incoming  president  in  his  inaugural  address  fervently  exhorted 
the  people  to  abide  by  the  forthcoming  decision,  whatever  it  might  be. 
Then,  in  a  few  days,  came  the  decision. 

"  The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an  early  occasion  to 
make  a  speech  at  this  capital  indorsing  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and 
vehemently  denouncing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new  president,  too, 
seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Silliman  letter  to  indorse  and  strongly 
construe  that  decision,  and  to  express  his  astonishment  that  any  different 
view  had  ever  been  entertained ! 

"  At  length  a  squabble  springs  up  between  the  president  and  the  au 
thor  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the  mere  question  of  fact,  whether  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  was  or  was  not,  in  any  just  sense,  made  by  the 
people  of  Kansas ;  and  in  that  quarrel  the  latter  declares  that  all  he 
wants  is  a  fair  vote  for  the  people,  and  that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery 
be  voted  down  or  voted  up.  I  do  not  understand  his  declaration  that 
lie  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up  to  be»  intended 
by  him  other  than  as  an  apt  definition  of  the  policy  he  would  impress 
upon  the  public  mind — the  principle  for  which  he  declares  he  has  suf 
fered  so  much,  and  is  ready  to  suffer  to  the  end.  And  well  may  he  cling 
to  that  principle.  If  he  has  any  parental  feeling,  well  may  he  cling  to 
it.  That  principle  is  the  only  shred  left  of  his  original  Nebraska  doc 
trine.  Under  the  Dred  Scott  decision  squatter  sovereignty  squatted 
out  of  existence,  tumbled  down  like  temporary  scaffolding — like  the 


164  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

mould  at  the  foundry,  served  through  one  blast  and  fell  back  into  loose 
sand — helped  to  carry  an  election,  and  then  was  kicked  to  the  winds. 
His  late  joint  struggle .  with  the  republicans,  against  the  Lecompton 
Constitution,  involves  nothing  of  the  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  That 
struggle  was  made  on  a  point — the  right  of  a  people  to  make  their  own 
constitution — upon  which  he  and  the  republicans  have  never  differed. 

"  The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  connection  with 
Senator  Douglas'  'care  not'  policy,  constitute  the  piece  of  machinery, 
in  its  present  state  of  advancement.  This  was  the  third  point  gained. 
The  working  points  of  that  machinery  are : 

"First,  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such  from  Africa,  and  no 
descendant  of  such  slave,  can  ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  state,  in  the  sense 
of  that  term  as  used  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  This 
point  is  made  in  order  to  deprive  the  negro,  in  every  possible  event,  of 
the  benefit  of  that  provision  of  the  United  States  Constitution,  which 
declares  that  'The  citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privi 
leges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  states.' 

"  Secondly,  That « subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,' 
neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  can  exclude  slavery  from 
any  United  States  territory.  This  point  is  made  in  order  that  individ 
ual  men  may  fill  up  the  territories  with  slaves,  without  danger  of  losing 
them  as  property,  and  thus  to  enhance  the  chances  of  permanency  to 
the  institution  through  all  the  future. 

"  Thirdly,  That  whether  the  holding  a  negro  in  actual  slavery  in  a 
free  state,  makes  him  free,  as  against  the  holder,  the  United  States 
courts  will  not  decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the  courts  of  any 
slave  state  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the  master.  This  point  is 
made,  not  to  .be  pressed  immediately ;  but,  if  acquiesced  in  for  awhile, 
and  apparently  indorsed  by  the  people  at  an  election,  then  to  sustain  the 
logical  conclusion  that  what  Dred  Scott's  master  might  lawfully  do  writh 
Dred  Scott,  in  the  free  state  of  Illinois,  every  other  master  may  lawfully 
do  with  any  other  one,  or  one  thousand  slaves,  in  Illinois,  or  in  any- 
other  free  state. 

"Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand  with  it,  the  Nebraska 
doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  is  to  educate  and  mould  public  opinion, 
at  least  northern  public  opinion,  not  to  care  whether  slavery  is  voted 
down  or  voted  up.  This  shows  exactly  where  we  now  are ;  and  par 
tially,  also,  whither  we  are  tending. 

"  It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go  back,  and  run  the 
mind  over  the  string  of  historical  facts  already  stated.  Several  things 
will  now  appear  less  dark  and  mysterious  than  they  did  when  they  were 
transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be  left  '  perfectly  free,' «  subject  onlj 
to  the  Constitution.'  What  the  Constitution  had  to  do  with  it,  out 
siders  could  not  then  see.  Plainly  enough  now,  it  was  an  exactly  fitted 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN,  165 

niche,  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision  to  afterward  come  in,  and  declare  the 
perfect  freedom  of  the  people  to  be  just  no  freedom  at  all.  Why  was 
the  amendment,  expressly  declaring  the  right  of  the  people,  voted 
down ?  Plainly  enough  now:  the  adoption  of  it  would  have  spoiled  the 
niche  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Why  was  the  court  decision  held 
up?  Why  even  a  senator's  individual  opinion  withheld,  till  after  the 
presidential  election?  Plainly  enough  now:  the  speaking  out  then 
would  have  damaged  the  perfectly  free  argument  upon  which  the  elec 
tion  was  to  be  carried.  Why  the  out-going  president's  felicitation  on 
the  indorsement?  AVhy  the  delay  of  a  re-argument?  Why  the  incom 
ing  president's  advance  exhortation  in  favor  of  the  decision?  These 
things  look  like  the  cautious  patting  and  petting  of  a  spirited  horse 
preparatory  to  mounting  him,  when  it  is  dreaded  that  he  may  give  the 
rider  a  fall.  And  why  the  hasty  after-indorsement  of  the  decision  by 
the  president  and  others  ? 

"  We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  exact  adaptations  are  the 
result  of  preconcert.  But  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different 
portions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different  times  and 
places  and  by  different  workmen — Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger  and  James, 
for  instance — and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined  together,  and  see 
they  exactly  make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mor 
tices  exactly  fitting,  and  all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the  different 
pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective  places,  and  not  a  piece  too 
many  or  too  few — not  omitting  even  scaffolding — or,  if  a  single  piece  be 
lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted  and  prepared  yet 
to  bring  such  piece  in — in  such"  a  case,  we  find  it  impossible  not  to 
believe  that  Stephen  and  Franklin  and  Roger  and  James  all  understood 
one  another  from  the  beginning,  and  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or 
draft  drawn  up  before  the  first  blow  was  struck. 

"It  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  people 
of  a  state  as  well  as  territory,  were  to  be  left  'perfectly  free,'  'subject 
only  to  the  Constitution.'  Why  mention  a  state  ?  They  were  legisla 
ting  for  territories,  and  not  for  or  about  states.  Certainly  the  people 
of  a  state  are  and  ought  to  be  subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States;  but  why  is  mention  of  this  lugged  into  this  merely  territorial 
law?  AVhy  are  the  people  of  a  territory  and  the  people  of  a  state 
therein  lumped  together,  and  their  relation  to  the  Constitution  therein 
treated  as  being  precisely  the  same?  While  the  opinion  of  the  court, 
by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  and  the  separate  opin 
ions  of  all  the  concurring  judges,  expressly  declare  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  neither  permits  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legisla 
ture  to  exclude  slavery  from  any  United  States  territory,  they  all  omit 
to  declare  whether  or  not  the  same  Constitution  permits  a  state,  or 
the  people  of  a  state,  to  exclude  it.  Possibly,  this  is  a  mere  omission; 


166  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

but  who  can  be  quite  sure,  if  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into 
the  opinion  a  declaration  of  unlimited  power  in  the  people  of  a  state  to 
exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  just  as  Chase  and  Mace  sought  to  get 
such  declaration,  in  behalf  of  the  people  of  a  territory,  into  the  Ne 
braska  bill; — I  ask,  who  can  be  quite  sure  that  it  would  not  have  been 
voted  down  in  the  one  case  as  it  had  been  in  the  other?  The  nearest 
approach  to  the  point  of  declaring  the  power  of  a  state  over  slavery,  is 
made  by  Judge  Nelson.  He  approaches  it  more  than  once,  using  the 
precise  idea,  and  almost  the  language,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  act.  On 
one  occasion,  his  exact  language  is,  'except  in  cases  where  the  power  is 
restrained  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  law  of  the 
state  is  supreme  over  the  subject  of  slavery  within  its  jurisdiction.'  Jn 
what  cases  the  power  of  the  states  is  so  restrained  by  the  United  States 
Constitution,  is  left  an  open  question,  precisely  as  the  same  question 
as  to  the  restraint  on  the  power  of  the  territories  was  left  open  in  the 
Nebraska  act.  Put  this  and  that  together,  and  we  have  another  nice 
little  niche,  which  we  may,  ere  long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme 
Court  decision,  declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
does  not  permit  a  slate  to  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this  may 
especially  be  expected  if  the  doctrine  of  'care  not  whether  slavery  be 
voted  down  or  voted  up,'  shall  gain  upon  the  public  mind  sufficiently  to 
give  promise  that  such  a  decision  can  be  maintained  when  made. 

"  Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  states.  Welcome,  or  unwelcome,  such  decision  is  probably  com 
ing,- and  will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of  the  present  political 
dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthrown.  We  shall  lie  down  pleasantly 
dreaming  that  the  people  of  Missouri  are  on  the  verge  of  making  their 
state  free,  and  we  shall  awake  to  the  reality  instead,  that  the  Supreme 
Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave  state.  To  meet  and  overthrow  the 
power  of  that  dynasty,  is  the  work  now  before  all  those  who  would 
prevent  that  consummation.  That  is  what  we  have  to  do.  How  can 
we  best  do  it '? 

"  There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their  own  friends,  and 
yet  whisper  us  softly  that  Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  instrument 
there  is  with  which  to  effect  that  object.  They  wish  us  to  infer  all,  from 
the  fact  that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  with  the  present  head  of  the 
dynasty ;  and  that  he  has  regularly  voted  with  us  on  a  single  point, 
upon  which  he  and  we  have  never  differed.  They  remind  us  that  he  is 
a  great  man,  and  that  the  largest  of  us  are  very  small  ones.  Let  this 
be  granted.  But  *  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion.'  Judge 
Douglas,  if  not  a  dead  lion,  for  this  work,  is  at  least  a  caged  and  tooth 
less  one.  How  can  he  oppose  the  advances  of  slavery  ?  He  don't  care 
anything  about  it.  His  avowed  mission  is  impressing  the  'public  heart' 
to  care  nothing  about  it.  A  leading  Douglas  democratic  newspaper 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  167 

thinks  Douglas'  superior  talent  will  be  needed  to  resist  the  revival  of 
the  African  slave  trade.  Does  Douglas  believe  an  effort  to  revive  that 
trade  is  approaching  ?  He  has  not  said  so.  Does  he  really  think  so  ? 
But  if  it  is,  how  can  he  resist  it  ?  For  years  he  has  labored  to  prove  it 
a  sacred  right  of  white  men  to  take  negro  slaves  into  the  new  territories. 
Can  he  possibly  show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred  right  to  buy  them  where 
they  can  be  bought  cheapest  ?  And  unquestionably  they  can  be  bought 
cheaper  in  Africa  than  in  Virginia,  He- has  done  all  in  his  power  to 
reduce  the  whole  question  of  slavery  to  one  of  a  mere  right  of  property ; 
and  as  such,  how  can  he  oppose  the  foreign  slave  trade — how  can  he 
refuse  that  trade  in  that '  property '  shall  be  '  perfectly  free ' — unless  he 
does  it  as  a  protection  to  the  home  production  ?  And  as  the  home  pro 
ducers  will  probably  not  ask  the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly  without 
a  ground  of  opposition. 

44  Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may  rightfully  be  wiser 
to-day  than  he  was  yesterday — that  he  may  rightfully  change  when  he 
finds  himself  wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that  reason,  run  ahead,  and  infer 
that  he  will  make  any  particular  change  of  which  he  himself  has  given 
no  intimation?  Can  we  safely  base  our  action  upon  any  such  vague 
inference  ?  Now,  as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepresent  Judge  Douglas' 
position,  question  his  motives,  or  do  aught  that  can  be  personally  offens 
ive  to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  can  come  together  on  prin 
ciple  so  that  our  cause  may  have  assistance  from  his  great  ability,  I  hope 
to  have  interposed  no  adventitious  obstacle,  But  clearly,  he  is  not  now 
with  us — he  does  not  pretend  to  be — he  does  not  promise  ever  to  be. 

"  Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  conducted  by,  its  own 
undoubted  friends — those  whose  hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in  the 
work — who  do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  Republicans  of 
the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hundred  thousand  strong.  We  did 
this  under  the  single  impulse  of  resistance  to  a  common  danger,  with 
every  external  circumstance  against  us.  Of  strange,  discordant,  and 
even  hostile  elements,  we  gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and 
fought  the  battle  through,  under  the  constant  hot  fire  of  a  disciplined, 
proud  and  pampered  enemy  Did  we  brave  all  then,  to  falter  now? — 
now,  when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered  and  belligerent? 
The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail — if  we  stand  firm,  we 
shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but, 
sooner  or  later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come." 

The  members  of  the  convention  carried  away  with  them 
something  to  think  about.  There  had  been  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
speech  no  appeals  to  their  partisan  prejudices,  no  tricks  to 
catch  applause.  He  had  appeared  before  them  as  an  earnest, 


168  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

patriotic  man,  intent  only  on  discussing,  in  the  gravest  and 
most  candid  manner,  the  most  interesting  and  momentous  po 
litical  questions. 

On  the  ninth  of  July,  Mr.  Douglas  made  a  speech  in  Chi 
cago.  The  reception  he  received  was  a  magnificent  one — one 
which  might  well  have  filled  him  with  the  gratification  which 
he  did  not  attempt  to  conceal — which,  indeed,  he  took  repeated 
occasion  to  express.  In  this  speech  he  alluded  to  his  efforts  to 
crush  the  Lecompton  fraud,  and  claimed  that  the  republicans 
who  had  fought  by  his  side  had  indorsed  his  popular  sover 
eignty  doctrine — the  right  of  the  people  of  a  territory  to  form 
their  own  institutions. 

He  then  took  up  the  action  of  the  republican  convention  at 
Springfield,  and  spoke  at  length  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  speech. 
Of  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  said:  "I  take  great  pleasure  in  saying 
that  I  have  known,  personally  and  intimately,  for  about  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  the  worthy  gentleman  who  has  been 
nominated  for  my  place,  and  I  will  say  that  I  regard  him  as  a 
kind,  amiable  and  intelligent  gentleman,  a  good  citizen  and  an 
honorable  opponent ;  and  whatever  issue  I  may  have  with  him 
will  be  of  principle  and  not  of  personalities."  He  then  read 
from  the  opening  paragraph  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  the 
words :  "  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  be 
lieve  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I 
do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it  to  cease  to 
be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other." 
The  unfairness  of  his  comments  upon  this  simple  statement  of 
a  conviction  may  be  gathered  from  the  construction  which  he 
put  upon  it  in  the  words — "  Mr.  Lincoln  advocates  boldly  and 
clearly  a  war  of  sections,  a  war  of  the  North  against  the 
South,  of  the  free  states  against  the  slave  states,  a  war  of  ex 
termination,  to  be  continued  relentlessly,  until  the  one  or  the 
other  shall  be  subdued,  and  all  the  states  shall  either  become 
free  or  become  slave." 

Mr.  Lincoln  foresaw  the  approaching  struggle  between 
freedom  and  slavery  and  its  inevitable  result.  He  did  not  be- 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  169 

lieve  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  possible,  but  he  knew  that 
freedom  and  slavery  were  irreconcilable  enemies.  He  knew 
that  slavery  must  die,  or  become  national.  He  saw  the  de 
termination  of  its  friends  to  make  it  national,  and  he  believed 
that  this  attempt  would  succeed,  or  that,  failing  of  success,  it 
would  end  in  the  universal  abolition  of  slavery.  Events  have 
entirely  justified  his  most  philosophical  view«of  the  subject. 

The  next  point  that  Mr.  Douglas  endeavored  to  make  was 
as  illegitimate  as  his  previous  one,  viz :  that  Mr.  Lincoln  de 
sired  to  reduce  the  states  to  a  dead  uniformity  of  interests  and 
institutions,  contrary  to  the  theory  and  policy  of  the  fathers 
of  the  republic.  In  order  to  do  this,  he  was  of  course  obliged 
to  ignore  the  fact  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  alluded  to  but  one  in 
stitution,  and  that,  in  its  nature  antagonistic  with  the  principles 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  to  recognize  slavery 
as  having  the  same  legitimate  basis  with  the  other  institutions 
of  the  country.  Having  construed  Mr.  Lincoln's  position 
unfairly,  he  logically  drove  to  the  unjust  conclusion  that  when 
the  uniformity  should  be  attained  which  Mr.  Lincoln  desired, 
the  government  would  have  "converted  these  thirty-two  sov 
ereign,  independent  states,  into  one  consolidated  empire,  with 
the  uniformity  of  disposition  reigning  triumphant  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land." 

He  next  took  up  Mr.  Lincoln's  criticism  of  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  and,  by  his  treatment  of  it,  fully  vindicated  the  ac 
tion  of  the  Illinois  republicans  in  their  refusal  to  support  him 
in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  their  eastern  friends.  No 
republican  could  consistently  support  a  man  who  supported 
that  iniquitous  and  barbarous  decision.  If  it  is  said  that  his 
course  on  this  question  would  have  been  changed  by  their 
support,  the  case  is  still  worse,  for  no  man  whose  course  could 
be  changed  by  such  considerations  would  be  worthy  of  the 
support  of  any  party.  "  I  am  opposed  to  this  doctrine  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,"  said  Mr.  Douglas,  uby  which  he  proposes  to  take 
an  appeal  from  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  upon  this  high  constitutional  question,  to  a  re 
publican  caucus  sitting  in  the  country.  .*  *  *  I  respect  the 


170  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

decisions  of  that  august  tribunal ;  I  shall  always  bow  in  def 
erence  to  them.  *  *  *  I  will  sustain  the  judicial  tribunals  and 
constituted  authorities,  in  all  matters  within  the  pale  of  their 
jurisdiction,  as  defined  by  the  Constitution."  Mr.  Douglas  did 
not  see  fit  to  allude  in  this  speech  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  charge  that 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  a  part  of  that  building  framed  so 
cunningly  by  "  Stephen,  Franklin,  Eoger  and  James,"  in  which 
was  to  be  conserved  the  power  of  making  slavery  universal. 
Mr.  Douglas  went  farther  than  simply  to  indorse  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  to  declare  his  intention  to  sustain  it.  "I 
am  equally  free,"  said  he,  "  to  say  that  the  reason  assigned  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  for  resisting  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case  does  not,  in  itself,  meet  my  approba 
tion.  *  *  He  says  it  is  wrong,  because  it  deprives  the  negro 
of  the  benefit  of  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  says 
that  the  citizens  of  one  state  shall  enjoy  all  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  the  citizens  of  the  several  states ;  in  other 
words,  he  thinks  it  wrong  because  it  deprives  the  negro  of 
the  privileges,  immunities  and  rights  of  citizenship  which 
pertain,  according  to  that  decision,  only  to  the  white  man, 
I  am  free  to  say  to  you  that,  in  my  opinion,  this  government 
of  ours  is  founded  on  the  white  basis.  It  was  made  for  the 
white  man,  for  the  benefit  of  the  white  man,  to  be  administered 
by  white  men,  in  such  manner  as  they  should  determine.  It 
is  also  true  that  a  negro,  an  Indian,  or  any  other  man  of  infe 
rior  race  to  a  white  man  should  be  permitted  to  enjoy,  and 
humanity  requires  that  he  should  have,  all  the  rights,  privi 
leges  and  immunities  which  he  is  capable  of  exercising,  con 
sistent  with  the  safety  of  society."  What  these  rights  should 
be,  was  only  legitimately  to  be  determined  by  the  states  them 
selves,  in  Mr.  Douglas'  opinion.  Illinois  had  decided  for 
herself  what  the  black  man's  rights  were  in  Illinois,  and  New 
York  and  Maine  had  decided  for  themselves.  By  inference, 
Kentucky  had  a  right  to  say  her  negroes  should  be  slaves, 
Illinois  that  her  negroes  should  not  vote,  New  York  that  her 

o 

negroes  might  vote  when  qualified  by  property,  and  Maine 
that  the  negro  was  equal  at  the  polls  to  the  white  man. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  171 

These  were  the  main  points  that  Mr.  Douglas  made  in  his 
Chicago  speech.  Mr.  Lincoln  sat  near  him,  on  the  platform, 
and  heard  the  whole  of  it.  Here,  as  elsewhere  during  the 
campaign  which  succeeded,  he  manifested  his  wonderful  good 
nature  under  misrepresentation.  There  were  incidents  of  this 
campaign  which  no  man  cast  in  the  common  mould  could  have 
passed  through  without  yielding  to  the  severest  passions  of 
indignation  and  anger.  He  was  belied,  abused,  misrepre 
sented  ;  but  he  never  betrayed  a  moment's  irritation.  That 
he  smarted  with  a  sense  of  wrong,  there  is  abundant  evidence ; 
but  he  was  never  moved  to  a  single  act  of  resentment. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  taken  the  speech  all  in,  and,  on  the  follow 
ing  evening,  it  was  announced  that  he  would  reply  to  it.  The 
greeting  which  he  received  when  he  took  the  stand  was  quite 
as  enthusiastic  as  that  which  Mr.  Douglas  had  met  on  the 
previous  evening.  He  was  introduced  to  the  audience  by 
Mr.  C.  L.  Wilson  of  Chicago,  and  when  he  came  forward, 
there  was  such  a  storm  of  long-continued  applause  that  he 
was  obliged  to  extend  his  hand  in  deprecation,  before  he  could 
secure  the  silence  necessary  for  proceeding.  After  disposing 
of  some  minor  matters,  he  took  up  the  points  of  Mr.  Douglas' 
speech  and  treated  them  fully.  Touching  the  comments  upon 
his  own  declaration — "  a  house  divided  agamst  .itself  eann( 
stand.  I  believe  this  goVernment  cannot  etfai&f5  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free,"  &c.,  he  said :  ff  U  }7  I  V  Z  ii  31  T  7] 

"I  am  not,  in  the  first  place,  unaware  that  this \roVernpiejit  has_ 
dured  eighty-two  years,  half  slave  and  half  free, 
tolerably  well  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  country7aTrcH-fcnt 
that  it  has  endured  eighty-two  years,  half  slave  and  half  free.    I  believe — 
and  that  is  what  I  meant  to  allude  to  there — I  believe  it  has  endured, 
because  during  all  that  time,  until  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska 
bill,  the  public  mind  did  rest  all  the  time  in  the  belief  that  slavery  was 
in  course  of  ultimate  extinction.     That  was  what  gave  us  the  rest  that 
we  had  through  that  period  of  eighty-two  years ;  at  least,  so  I  believe. 
I  have  always  hated  slavery,  I  think,  as  much  as  any  abolitionist — I 
have  been  an  old  line  whig — I  have  always  hated  it,  but  I  have  always 
been  quiet  about  it  until  this  new  era  of  the  introduction  of  the  Ne 
braska  bill  began.     I  always  believed  that  everybody  was  against  it, 
and  that  it  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 


172  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"  The  adoption  of  the  Constitution  and  its  attendant  history  led  the 
people  to  believe  so ;  and  such  was  the  belief  of  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  itself,  else  why  did  those  old  men,  about  the  time  of  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  decree  that  slavery  should  not  go  into 
the  new  territory,  where  it  had  not  already  gone  V  Why  declare  that 
within  twenty  years  the  African  slave  trade,  by  which  slaves  are  sup 
plied,  might  be  cut  off  by  Congress  V  Why  were  all  these  acts  ?  I 
might  enumerate  more  of  these  acts — but  enough.  What  were  they 
but  a  clear  indication  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  intended 
and  expected  the  ultimate  extinction  of  that  institution  V  And  now, 
when  I  say,  as  I  said  in  my  speech  that  Judge  Douglas  has  quoted 
from — when  I  say  that  I  think  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  resist  the 
farther  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  with 
the  belief  that  it  is  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  I  only  mean  to 
say  that  they  will  place  it  where  the  founders  of  this  Government  orig 
inally  placed  it. 

"  I  have  said  a  hundred  times,  and  I  have  now  no  inclination  to  take 
it  back,  that  I  believe  there  is  no  right,  and  ought  to  be  no  inclination 
in  the  people  of  the  free  states  to  enter  into  the  slave  states,  and  inter 
fere  with  the  question  of  slavery  at  all.  I  have  said  that  always ;  Judge 
Douglas  has  heard  me  say  it — if  not  quite  a  hundred  times,  at  least  as 
good  as  a  hundred  times ;  and  when  it  is  said  that  I  am  in  favor  of 
interfering  with  slavery  where  it  exists,  I  know  it  is  unwarranted  by 
anything  I  have  ever  intended,  and,  as  I  believe,  by  anything  I  have 
ever  said.  If,  by  any  means,  I  have  ever  used  language  which  could 
fairly  be  so  construed  (as,  however,  I  believe  I  never  have),  I  now  cor 
rect  it." 

The  next  point  touched  upon  was  Judge  Douglas'  charge 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  favor  of  reducing  the  institutions  of 
all  the  states  to  uniformity : 

"  Now  in  relation  to  his  inference  that  I  am  in  favor  of  a  general 
consolidation  of  all  the  local  institutions  of  the  various  states.  I  will 
attend  to  that  for  a  little  while,  and  try  to  inquire,  if  I  can,  how  on 
earth  it  could  be  that  any  man  could  draw  such  an  inference  from  any 
thing  I  said.  I  have  said,  very  many  times,  in  Judge  Douglas"  hearing, 
that  no  man  believed  more  than  I  in  the  principle  of  self-government; 
that  it  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  my  ideas  of  just  government,' from  be 
ginning  to  end.  I  have  denied  that  his  use  of  that  term  applies  properly. 
But  for  the  thing  itself,  I  deny  that  any  man  has  ever  gone  ahead  of  me 
in  his  devotion  to  the  principle,  whatever  he  may  have  done  in  efficiency 
in  advocating  it.  I  think  that  I  have  said  it  in  your  hearing — that  I 
believe  each  individual  is  naturally  entitled  to  do  as  he  pleases  with 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN".  173 

himself  and  the  fruit  of  his  labor,  so  far  as  it  in  no  wise  interferes  with 
any  other  man's  rights — that  each  community,  as  a  state,  has  a  right  to 
do  exactly  as  it  pleases  with  all  the  concerns  within  that  state  that 
interferes  with  the  right  of  no  other  state,  and  that  the  general  govern 
ment,  upon  principle,  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  anything  other  than 
that  general  class  of  things  that  does  concern  the  whole.  I  have  said 
that  at  all  times.  I  have  said  as  illustrations,  that  I  do  not  believe 
in  the  right  of  Illinois  to  interfere  with  the  cranberry  laws  of  Indi 
ana,  the  oyster  laws  of  Virginia,  or  the  liquor  laws  of  Maine.  I  have 
said  these  things  over  and  over  again,  and  I  repeat  them  here  as  my 
sentiments. 

"  How  is  it,  then,  that  Judge  Douglas  infers,  because  I  hope  to  see 
slavery  put  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in 
the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  that  I  am  in  favor  of  Illinois  going 
over  and  interfering  with  the  cranberry  laws  of  Indiana  ?  What  can 
authorize  him  to  draw  any  such  inference  ?  I  suppose  there  might  be 
one  thing  that  at  least  enabled  him  to  draw  such  an  inference  that  would 
not  be  true  with  me  or  many  others,  that  is,  because  he  looks  upon  all 
this  matter  of  slavery  as  an  exceedingly  little  thing — this  matter  of 
keeping  one-sixth  of  the  population  of  the  whole  nation  in  a  state  of 
oppression  and  tyranny  unequaled  in  the  world.  He  looks  upon  it  as 
being  an  exceedingly  little  thing — only  equal  to  the  question  of  the 
cranberry  laws  of  Indiana — as  something  having  no  moral  question  in 
it — as  something  on  a  par  with  the  question  of  whether  a  man  shall 
pasture  his  land  with  cattle,  or  plant  it  with  tobacco— so  little  and  so 
small  a  thing,  that  he  concludes,  if  I  could  desire  that  if  anything  should 
be  done  to  bring  about  the  ultimate  extinction  of  that  little  thing,  I 
must  be  in  favor  of  bringing  about  an  amalgamation  of  all  the  other 
little  things  in  the  Union.  Now,  it  so  happens — and  there,  I  presume, 
is  the  foundation  of  this  mistake — that  the  Judge  thinks  thus ;  and  it  so 
happens  that  there  is  a  vast  portion  of  the  American  people  that  do  not 
look  upon  that  matter  as  being  this  very  little  thing.  They  look  upon 
it  as  a  vast  moral  evil;  they  can  prove  it  such  by  the  writings  of 
those  who  gave  us  the  blessings  of  liberty  which  we  enjoy,  and  that 
they  so  looked  upon  it,  not  as  an  evil  merely  confining  itself  to  the 
states  where  it  is  situated;  and  while  we  agree  that,  by  the  Constitution 
we  assented  to,  in  the  states  where  it  exists  we  have  no  right  to  interfere 
with  it,  because  it  is  in  the  Constitution ;  we  are  by  both  duty  and  in 
clination  to  stick  by  that  Constitution,  in  all  its  letter  and  spirit,  from 
beginning  to  end. 

"  So  much  then  as  to  my  disposition — my  wish — to  have  all  the  state 
legislatures  blotted  out,  and  to  have  one  consolidated  government,  and 
a  uniformity  of  domestic  regulations  in  all  the  states  by  which  I  suppose 
it  is  meant,  if  we  raise  corn  here,  we  must  make  sugar-cane  grow  here 


174  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

too,  and  we  must  make  those  which  grow  North  grow  in  the  South. 
All  this  I  suppose  he  understands  I  am  in  favor  of  doing.  Now,  so 
much  for  all  this  nonsense — for  I  must  call  it  so.  The  Judge  can  have 
no  issue  with  me  on  a  question  of  establishing  uniformity  in  the  domes 
tic  regulations  of  the  states." 

Concerning  the  Dred  Scott  decision  he  said : 

"I  have  expressed  heretofore,  and  I  now  repeat,  my  opposition  to  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  but  I  should  be  allowed  to  state  the  nature  of  that 
opposition,  and  I  ask  your  indulgence  while  I  do  so.  What  is  fairly  im 
plied  by  the  term  Judge  Douglas  has  used,  'resistance  to  the  decision  V 
I  do  not  resist  it.  If  I  wanted  to  take  Dred  Scott  from  his  master,  I 
would  be  interfering  with  property,  and  that  terrible  difficulty  that 
Judge  Douglas  speaks  of,  of  interfering  with  property  would  arise. 
But  I  am  doing  no  such  thing  as  that,  but  all  that  I  am  doing  is  refus 
ing  to  obey  it  as  a  political  rule.  If  I  were  in  Congress,  and  a  vote 
should  come  up  on  a  question  whether  slavery  should  be  prohibited  in 
a  new  territory,  in  spite  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  I  would  vote  that 
it  should. 

"  That  is  what  I  would  do.  Judge  Douglas  said  last  night,  that 
before  the  decision  he  might  advance  his  opinion,  and  it  might  be 
contrary  to  the  decision  when  it  was  made ;  but  after  it  was  made  he 
would  abide  by  it  until  it  was  reversed.  Just  so !  We  let  this  prop 
erty  abide  by  the  decision,  but  we  will  try  to  reverse  that  decision. 
We  will  try  to  put  it  where  Judge  Douglas  would  not  object,  for  he 
says  he  will  obey  it  until  it  is  reversed.  Somebody  has  to  reverse  that 
decision,  since  it  is  made,  and  we  mean  to  reverse  it,  and  we  mean  to  do 
it  peaceably. 

"  What  are  the  uses  of  decisions  of  courts  V  They  have  two  uses. 
As  rules  of  property  they  have  two  uses.  First — they  decide  upon  the 
question  before  the  court.  They  decide  in  this  case  that  Dred  Scott  is 
a  slave.  Nobody  resists  that.  Not  only  that,  but  they  say  to  every 
body  else,  that  persons  standing  just  as  Dred  Scott  stands,  is  as  he  is. 
That  is,  they  say  that  when  a  question  comes  up  upon  another  person, 
it  will  be  so  decided  again,  unless  the  court  decides  in  another  way, 
unless  the  court  overrules  its  decision.  Well,  we  mean  to  do  what  we 
can  to  have  the  court  decide  the  other  way.  That  is  one  thing  we  mean 
to  try  to  do. 

"  The  sacredness  that  Judge  Douglas  throws  around  this  decision,  is 
a  degree  of  sacredness  that  has  never  been  before  thrown  around  any 
other  decision.  I  have  never  heard  of  such  a  thing.  Why,  decisions 
apparently  contrary  to  that  decision,  or  that  good  lawyers  thought  were 
contrary  to  that  decision,  have  been  made  by  that  very  court  before. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  175 

It  is  the  first  of  its  kind ;  it  is  an  astonisher  in  legal  history.  It  is  a 
new  wonder  of  the  world.  It  is  based  upon  falsehood  in  the  main  as 
to  the  facts — allegations  of  facts  upon  which  it  stands  are  not  facts 
at  all  in  many  instances — and  no  decision  made  on  any  question — the 
first  instance  of  a  decision  made  under  so  many  unfavorable  circum 
stances — thus  placed,  has  ever  been  held  by  the  profession  as  law, 
and  it  has  always  needed  confirmation  before  the  lawyers  regarded 
it  as  settled  law.  But  Judge  Douglas  will  have  it  that  all  hands  must 
take  this  extraordinary  decision,  made  under  these  extraordinary  cir 
cumstances,  and  give  their  vote  in  Congress  in  accordance  with  it, 
yield  to  it  and  obey  it  in  every  possible  sense.  Circumstances  alter 
cases.  Do  not  gentlemen  here  remember  the  case  of  that  same  Su 
preme  Court,  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago,  deciding  that  a 
national  bank  was  constitutional?  I  ask,  if  somebody  does  not  re 
member  that  a  national  bank  was  declared  to  be  constitutional?  Such 
is  the  truth,  whether  it  be  remembered  or  not.  The  bank  charter  ran 
out,  and  a  re-charter  was  granted  by  Congress.  That  re-charter  was 
laid  before  General  Jackson.  It  was  urged  upon  him,  when  he  denied 
the  constitutionality  of  the  bank  that  the  Supreme  Court  had  decided 
it  was  constitutional ;  and  General  Jackson  then  said  that  the  Supreme 
Court  had  no  right  to  lay  down  a  rule  to  govern  a  co-ordinate  branch 
of  the  Government,  the  members  of  which  had  sworn  to  support  the 
Constitution — that  each  member  had  sworn  to  support  that  Constitu 
tion  as  he  understood  it.  I  will  venture  here  to  say,  that  I  have  heard 
Judge  Douglas  say  that  he  approved  of  General  Jackson  for  that  act. 
What  has  now  become  of  all  his  tirade  about  'resistance  to  the  Su 
preme  Court?'" 


There  were  some  passages  in  this  speech  which  illustrated 
Mr.  Lincoln's  readiness  in  "  putting  things  "  to  the  common 
apprehension.  After  having  said  that  the  much  vaunted 
"  popular  sovereignty  "  which  Mr.  Douglas  had  put  forth  as 
his  own  invention  was  something  which,  when  properly  de 
fined,  the  republicans  had  always  accepted  and  acted  upon, 
and  that  it  came,  not  from  Judge  Douglas,  but  from  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  which  states  that  governments 
derive  their  just  powers  "  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,'* 
he  alluded  to  the  defeat  of  the  Lecompton  Constitution  in 
Congress.  He  said  that  the  republicans  took  ground  against 
the  Lecompton  Constitution  long  before  Judge  Douglas  did, 
and  that  he  held  in  his  hand  a  speech  in  which  he  urged  the 


176  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

same  reason  against  Douglas  the  year  before  that  he  (Doug 
las)  was  urging  now.     He  went  on : 

"  A  little  more,  now,  as  to  this  matter  of  popular  sovereignty  and  the 
Lecompton  Constitution.  The  Lecompton  Constitution,  as  the  Judge 
tells  us,  was  defeated.  The  defeat  of  it  was  a  good  thing,  or  it  was  not, 
lie  thinks  the  defeat  of  it  was  a  good  thing,  and  so  do  I,  and  we  agree 
in  that.  Who  defeated  it  ? 

"  A  voice — '  Judge  Douglas.' 

"  Mr.  Lincoln — Yes,  he  furnished  himself,  and,  if  you  suppose  he  fur 
nished  the  other  democrats  that  went  with  him,  he  furnished  three  votes, 
while  the  republicans  furnished  twenty.  That  is  what  he  did  to  defeat 
It.  In  the  House  of  Representatives  he  and  his  friends  furnished  some 
twenty  votes  and  the  republicans  ninety  odd.  Now  who  was  it  that 
did  the  work  ? 

"A  voice — '  Douglas.' 

"  Mr.  Lincoln — Why,  yes,  Douglas  did  it.  To  be  sure  he  did.  Let 
fis,  however,  put  that  proposition  another  way.  The  republicans  could 
not  have  done  it  without  Judge  Douglas.  Could  he  have  done  it  with 
out  them?  Which  could  have  come  the  nearest  to  doing  it  without 
the  other?" 

The  following  point  was  so  neatly  made  that  it  drew  from 
the  house  three  hearty  cheers: 

"  We  were  often — more  than  once  at  least — in  the  course  of  Judge 
Douglas'  speech  last  night,  reminded  that  this  government  was  made 
for  white  men — that  he  believed  it  was  made  for  white  men.  Well,  that 
is  putting  it  into  a  shape  in  which  no  one  wants  to  deny  it ;  but  the 
Judge  then  goes  into  his  passion  for  drawing  inferences  that  are  not 
warranted.  I  protest,  now  and  forever,  against  that  counterfeit  logic 
which  presumes  that  because  I  do  not  want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave, 
I  do  necessarily  want  her  for  a  wife.  My  understanding  is  that  I  need 
not  have  her  for  either,  but,  as  God  made  us  separate,  we  can  leave  one 
another  alone,  and  do  one  another  much  good  thereby.  There  are 
white  men  enough  to  marry  all  the  white  women,  and  enough  black 
men  to  marry  all  the  black  women,  and  in  God's  name  let  them  be  so 
married.  The  Judge  regales  us  with  the  terrible  enormities  that  take 
place  by  the  mixture  of  races ;  that  the  inferior  race  bears  the  superior 
down.  Why,  Judge,  if  we  do  not  let  them  get  together  in  the  territo 
ries  they  won't  mix  there." 

And  thus  was  -opened  the  grand  senatorial  campaign  of 
1858.  Mr.  Douglas  had  not  been  present  at  Mr.  Lincoln's 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  177 

speech,  a  fact  which  Mr.  Lincoln  regretted,  and  he  soon  took 
measures  to  secure  his  attendance.  In  the  meantime,  the 
campaign  went  on.  Mr.  Douglas  spoke  a  week  later  at 
Bloomington,  making  much,  as  usual,  of  his  doctrine  of  pop 
ular  sovereignty,  and  of  his  rebellion  against  the  administra 
tion  on  the  Lecompton  question.  Mr.  Lincoln's  original 
Springfield  speech  came  in  for  comment,  particularly  the  two 
points  which  he  criticised  at  Chicago.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
present  on  this  occasion  also,  determined  to  find  out  the  exact 
ground  of  his  antagonist,  that  he  might  be  able  to  meet  him 
in  the  struggle  which  he  had  determined  upon.  On  the  day 
following  his  Bloomington  speech,  Mr.  Douglas  spoke  at 
Springfield,  as  did  also  Mr.  Lincoln,  though  not  at  the  same 
meeting.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  opening  his  speech,  alluded  to  the 
disadvantages  which  the  republicans  of  the  state  labored 
under  in  the  unjust  apportionment  of  the  legislative  districts, 
and  particularly  in  the  disparity  that  existed  between  the 
reputation  and  prospects  of  the  senatorial  candidates  of  the 
two  parties.  All  the  anxious  politicians  of  the  party  of  Mr. 
Douglas  had  been  looking  upon  him  as  certain,  at  no  distant 
day,  to  be  the  President  of  the  United  States.  "  They  have 
seen,"  he  said,  "in  his  round,  jolly,  fruitful  face,  post-offices, 
land-offices,  marshalships  and  cabinet  appointments,  charge- 
ships  and  foreign  missions,  bursting  and  sprouting  out,  in 
wonderful  luxuriance,  ready  to  be  laid  hold  of  by  their  greedy 
hands.  And  as  they  have  been  gazing  upon  this  attractive 
picture  so  long,  they  cannot,  in  the  little  distraction  that  has 
taken  place  in  the  party,  bring  themselves  to  give  up  the 
charming  hope;  but  with  greedier  anxiety  they  rush  about 
him,  sustain  him,  and  give  him  marches,  triumphal  entries 
and  receptions,  beyond  what,  even  in  the  days  of  his  highest 
prosperity,  they  could  have  brought  about  in  his  favor.  On 
the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be  president. 
In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face  nobody  has  ever  seen  that  any 
cabbages  were  sprouting  out."  The  main  body  of  the  speech 
was  devoted  to  the  questions  at  issue  between  him  and  Judge 
Douglas,  and  does  not  contain  matter  of  special  interest  beyond 
12 


178  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

what  he  had  previously  uttered  upon  the  same  points.  He 
closed  by  reiterating  the  charge  made  in  his  speech  of  June 
seventeenth  that  Mr.  Douglas  was  a  party  to  the  conspiracy 
for  deceiving  the  people  with  the  idea  that  the  settlers  of 
a  territory  could  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  if  they 
should  choose  to  do  so,  and,  at  the  same  time,  rendering  it  im 
possible  for  them  to  do  so  through  the  standing  veto  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  The  charge  was  a  grave  one>  but  Mr. 
Douglas  had  ignored  it.  Since  it  was  made,  he  had  not 
alluded  to  it  at  all.  "  On  his  own  tacit  admission,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "I  renew  the  charge." 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

ME.  LINCOLN  wanted  closer  work  than  Mr.  Douglas  had 
given  him.  He  desired  to  address  the  same  audiences  with 
his  antagonist,  and  to  show  to  those  whom  he  addressed  the 
fallacy  of  his  reasoning  and  the  groundlessness  of  his  charges. 
Accordingly,  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  July,  he  dispatched  the 
following  note : — 
• 

"  HON.  S.  A.  DOUGLAS— My  Dear  Sir :  Will  it  be  agreeable  to  yon 
to  make  an  arrangement  for  you  and  myself  to  divide  time,  and  address 
the  same  audiences  the  present  canvass?  Mr.  Judd,  who  will  hand  you 
this,  is  authorized  to  receive  your  answer;  and,  if  agreeable  to  you,  to 
enter  into  the  terms  of  such  arrangement. 

"  Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINCOLN." 

To  this  Mr.  D.ouglas  replied,  stating  that  recent  events  had 
interposed  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  an  arrangement.  In 
connection  with  the  State  Central  Committee  at  Springfield, 
he  had  made  a  series  of  appointments  extending  over  nearly 
the  whole  period  that  remained  before  the  election,  and  the 
people  of  the  various  localities  had  been  notified  of  the  times 
and  places  of  the  meetings.  The  candidates  for  Congress,  the 
legislature  and  other  offices  would  desire  to  speak  at  these 
meetings,  and  thus  all  the  time  would  be  occupied.  Then  he 
proceeded  to  give,  as  a  further  reason  for  his  refusal,  that  it 
was  intended  to  bring  out  another  candidate  for  United  States 
senator,  to  divide  the  democratic  vote  for  the  benefit  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  that  he  (the  third  candidate)  would  also  claim  a 


180  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

chance  in  the  joint  debates,  so  that  he  (said  third  candidate) 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  the  opening  and  closing  speech 
in  every  instance.  "While,  therefore,  he  declined  the  general 
invitation,  he  declared  himself  ready  to  make  an  arrangement 
for  seven  joint  debates  in  the  congressional  districts  respect 
ively  where  they  had  not  already  spoken,  and  at  the  follow 
ing  places,  viz :  Freeport,  Ottawa,  Galesburg,  Quincy,  Alton, 
Jonesboro  and  Charleston.  This  letter  was  published  in  the 
Chicago  Times,  and  read  there  by  Mr.  Lincoln  before  he  re 
ceived  the  autograph  by  mail. 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Lincoln  responded,  denying,  of  course, 
the  foolish  charge  of  intended  unfairness  in  bringing  in  a  third 
candidate  to  divide  the  time  to  the  disadvantage  of  Mr.  Doug 
las,  and  agreeing  to  speak  in  the  seven  places  mentioned. 
There  is  other  matter  in  these  letters*  which  thoroughly 
discovers  the  characteristics  of  the  two  writers,  but  it  must  be 
left  behind. 

Mr.  Douglas  replied  to  this  second  letter  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
designating  the  time  and  places  of  the  debate  as  they  follow: 

Ottawa,  LaSalle  County,  August  21st,  1858;  Freeport,  Stephenson. 
County,  August  27th;  Jonesboro,  Union  County,  September  15th; 
Charleston,  Coles  County,  September  18th;  Galesburg,  Knox  County, 
October  7th;  Quincy,  Adanis  County,  October  13th;  Alton,  Madison 
County,  October  loth. 

The  terms  proposed  in  this  letter  and  accepted  in  a  subse 
quent  note  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  were,  that  at  Ottawa,  Mr.  Doug 
las  should  speak  an  hour,  then  Mr.  Lincoln  an  hour  and  a 
half,  Mr.  Douglas  having  the  closing  speech  of  half  an  hour. 
At  the  next  place,  Mr.  Lincoln  should  open  and  close  in  the 
same  way,  and  so  on,  alternately,  to  the  conclusion  of  the  ar^ 
rangement.  /  / 

As  about  three  weeks  intervened  between  the  date  of  this 
agreement  for  joint  debates  and  the  first  appointment;  both 
parties  engaged  zealously  in  their  independent  work.  Mr. 

*  Political  debates  between  Hon.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Hon.  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  (Follett,  Foster  &  Co.,)  pages  64  and  65. 


LIFE   OF   ABE  AH  AM   LINCOLN.  181 

Lincoln  began  his  canvass  at  Beardstown,  the  spot  where, 
twenty-five  years  before,  he  had  taken  his  military  company 
for  rendezvous  before  starting  out  for  the  Black  Hawk  war. 
After  making  a  speech  here,  he  went  up  the  Illinois  River  to 
Havana  and  Bath  in  Mason  County,  to  Lewistpfra  and  Can 
ton  in  Fulton  County,  and  to  Peoria  and  Henry  in  Marshall 
County,  making  speeches  at  each  place,  and  attracting  im 
mense,  audiences.  Mr.  Douglas  was  equally  busy,  and  equally 
fortunate  in  attracting  the  people  to  listen  to  his  utterances 
upon  the  great  questions  of  the  day.  At  Clinton,  in  DeWitt 
County,  he  found  it  no  longer  possible  to  pass  in  silence  the 
charge  of  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  had  "  left  a  niche  in  the  Ne 
braska  bill  to  receive  the  Dred  Scott  decision,"  which  declared 
in  effect,  that  a  territorial  legislature  could  not  abolish  slavery. 
Mr.  Douglas  here  stated  that  his  self-respect  alone  prevented 
him  from  calling  this  charge  a  falsehood.  Subsequently,  at 
Beardstown,  he  broke  over  his  restraints,  and  called  it  "an 
infamous  lie."  To  this  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  on  a  subse 
quent  occasion  as  follows : 

"  I  say  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  it  would  be  more  to  the  purpose  for 
Judge  Douglas  to  say  that  he  did  not  repeal  the  Missouri  compromise ; 
that  he  did  not  make  slavery  possible  where  it  was  impossible  before ; 
that  he  did  not  leave  a  niche  in  the  Nebraska  bill  for  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  to  rest  in ;  that  he  did  not  vote  down  a  clause  giving  the  peo 
ple  the  right  to  exclude  slavery  if  they  wanted  to;  that  he  did  not  refuse 
to  give  his  individual  opinion  whether  a  territorial  legislature  could  ex 
clude  slavery;  that  he  did  not  make  a  report  to  the  senate  in  which  he 
said  that  the  rights  of  the  people  in  this  regard  were  held  in  abeyance, 
and  could  not  be  immediately  exercised;  that  he  did  not  make  a  hasty 
indorsement  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision  over  at  Springfield ;  that  he 
does  not  now  indorse  that  decision;  that  that  decision  does  not  take 
away  from  the  territorial  legislature  the  power  to  exclude  slavery;  and 
that  he  did  not  in  the  original  Nebraska  bill  so  couple  the  words  *  state ' 
and '  territory '  together  that  what  the  Supreme  Court  has  done  in  forcing 
open  all  the  territories  for  slavery,  it  may  yet  do  in  forcing  open  all  the 
states ; — I  say  it  would  be  vastly  more  to  the  point,  for  Judge  Douglas 
to  say  he  did  not  do  some  of  these  things,  did  not  forge  some  of  these 
links  of  overwhelming  testimony,  than  to  go  to  vociferating  about  the 
country  that  possibly  he  may  be  obliged  to  hint  that  somebody  is  a  liar." 


182  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  series  agreed  upon  was  held  at 
Ottawa  according  to  appointment.  A  concourse  of  citizens 
estimated  at  twelve  thousand  had  assembled.  Mr.  Douglas 

O 

had  the  opening  speech,  and  in  this  speech  he  resorted  to  an 
expedient  for  placing  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  defensive  which  was 
cither  very  weak,  or  very  wicked.  He  made  a  charge  against 
Mr.  Lincoln  which,  if  he  knew  it  to  be  false,  was  foul,  and 
which,  if  he  did  not  know  to  be  true,  was  most  impolitic.  He 
charged  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  part  of  the  whigs,  and  Mr. 
Trumbull,  on  the  part  of  the  democrats,  entered  into  an  ar 
rangement  in  1854,  for  the  dissolution  of  the  two  parties,  and 
the  fusing  of  both  in  the  republican  party,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  Lincoln  Shields'  place  in  the  Senate,  and  Trumbull, 
his  (Douglas')  own.  Furthermore,  that  the  parties  met  at 
Springfield  in  October  of  that  year,  and,  in  convention  of  their 
friends,  laid  down  a  platform  of  the  principles  upon  which  the 
new  party  was  constructed.  He  then  proceeded  to  read  what 
he  called  "the  most  important  and  material  resolutions  of  the 
abolition  platform."  What  these  resolutions  were,  will  appear 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's  replies  to  the  questions  which  Mr.  Douglas 
based  upon  them.  His  object  in  asking  these  questions  was, 
as  he  said,  in  order  that  when  he  should  "  trot  him  (Lincoln) 
down  "  to  lower  Egypt  (southern  Illinois)  he  might  put  the 
same  questions  to  him  there. 

The  hearty  reception  which  the  audience  gave  to  the  prin 
ciples  of  this  platform  as  he  pronounced  them,  did  not  please 
Mr.  Douglas.  He  wished  to  see  whether  they  would  "  bear 
transplanting  from  Ottawa  to  Jonesboro."  "I  have  a  right," 
said  Mr.  Douglas,  "to  an  answer,  for  I  quote  from  the  plat 
form  of  the  republican  party,  made  by  himself  (Lincoln)  and 
others  at  the  time  that  party  was  formed,  and  the  bargain 
made  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  dissolve  and  kill  the  old  whig  party, 
and  transfer  its  members,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  the  abolition 
party,  under  the  direction  of  Giddings  and  Fred  Douglass." 

Mr.  Douglas  went  on  then  to  comment  on  Mr.  Lincoln's 
Springfield  speech,  which  had  come  to  be  known  as  "the 
house-divided-against-itself  speech,"  and  slid,  as  usual,  into 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  183 

Ms  talk  about  the  inferiority  of  the  negro.  Speaking  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  the  "  abolition  orators,"  he  said,  "  he  and  they 
maintain  that  negro  equality  is  guarantied  by  the  laws  of 
God,  and  that  it  is  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence.  If  they  think  so,  of  course  they  have  a  right  to  say  so, 
and  so  vote.  I  do  not  question  Mr.  Lincoln's  conscientious 
belief  that  the  negro  was  made  his  equal,  and,  hence,  his 
brother;  but  for  my  own  part,  I  do  not  regard  the  negro  as 
my  equal,  and  positively  deny  that  he  is  my  brother,  or  any 
kin  to  me  whatever." 

And  here  it  may  be  said,  because  it  will  be  impossible  to 
describe  with  particularity  all  the  speeches  of  the  campaign, 
that  the  staple  of  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Douglas,  as  well  as 
those  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  related  to  a  very  few  points,  which  may 
be  summed  up  in  a  brace  of  paragraphs. 

Mr.  Douglas  did  not  believe  in  natural  negro  equality,  and 
did  believe  that  every  state  had  the  right  to  say  just  what 
rights  she  would  confer  upon  the  negro ;  that  the  people  of 
every  territory  had  a  right  to  decide  as  to  what  their  institu* 
tions  should  be,  while  he  bowed,  at  the  same  time,  to  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  which  declared  that  they  had  no  right  to 
abolish  slavery ;  and  that  the  country  could  endure  half  slave 
and  half  free  as  well  for  all  coming  time  as  it  had  for  the  pre 
vious  eighty  years,  while  slavery  itself,  to  him,  was  a  matter  of 
indifference — an  institution  which  might  be  "voted  up  or 
voted  down,"  without  any  appeal  to  his  preferences. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Lincoln  placed  himself  on  the  broad 
ground  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  and  are  by  heaven  endowed  with  certain 
inalienable  rights,  such  as  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  hap 
piness.  He  recognized  the  negro  as  a  man,  coming  within  the 
broad  sweep  of  this  Declaration.  He  believed  thoroughly  in 
Mr.  Douglas'  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty,  without  the 
Dred  Scott  qualification,  which  was  a  direct  denial  of  the 
sovereignty ;  but  he  believed  the  abrogation  of  the  Missouri 
compromise,  which  Mr.  Douglas  himself  had  effected,  an  un 
speakable  wrong,  a  foul  breach  of  faith,  by  which  it  was  ren*- 


184  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dered  possible  for  the  people  of  a  territory  to  choose  slavery; 
and  by  which  the  forcing  of  slavery  upon  them  was  rendered 
practicable.  Furthermore,  he  saw  in  that  "  piece  of  machin 
ery,"  made  up  of  congressional  legislation,  Supreme  Court 
decisions  and  executive  and  party  connivance,  an  attempt  to 
nationalize  and  perpetuate  slavery,  which  he  felt  must  logically 
ultimate  in  that  result,  or  end  in  universal  emancipation. 
Slavery,  he  believed,  had  lived  by  the  side  of  freedom,  and  in 
partnership  with  it,  simply  because  freedom  had  regarded 
itself  as  eternal,  while  it  had  regarded  slavery  as  ephemeral. 
Thus  the  fathers  regarded  and  treated  slavery.  They  had 
curtailed  its  territory.  They  had  forbidden  the  importation  of 
slaves.  All  their  arrangements  looked  to  an  early  end  of 
slavery  ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  quoted  the  champions  of  slavery  to 
sustain  his  views  on  this  point.  When  the  policy  of  the  gov 
ernment  changed,  and  it  was  proposed  to  nationalize  slavery 
and  make  it  perpetual — to  confer  upon  it  the  same  rights  with 
freedom — nay,  to  make  it  impossible  for  freedom  to  abolish 
it — then  he  foresaw  a  conflict  which  could  only  end  by  its 
utter  overthrow,  or  its  universal  prevalence.  He  did  not  be 
lieve  the  house  would  fall ;  he  did  believe  that  it  would  cease 
to  be  divided. 

The  seven  joint  debates  rang  their  changes  on  these  points, 
as  they  were  held  and  maintained  by  the  debaters.  Mr. 
Douglas  did  not  seem  to  be  as  fertile  in  thought  and  expres 
sion  as  his  antagonist.  He  was  more  given  to  diversions,  to  the 
ordinary  clap-trap  of  campaign  speaking,  to  appeals  to  preju 
dices,  to  the  springing  of  false  issues,  to  quibbles  and  tricks. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  contrary,  was  in  thorough  earnest,  and 
stuck  with  manly  tenacity  to  the  great  questions  he  had  in 
hand.  He  stripped  every  objectionable  proposition  and  every 
specious  argument  of  the  disguises  in  which  the  ingenious 
language  of  Mr.  Douglas  had  clothed  them,  and  refused  to 
be  led  away,  by  a  hair's  breadth,  from  the  real,  naked  issues 
of  the  campaign. 

In  replying  to  Judge  Douglas  at  Ottawa,  he  simply  said 
that  the  story  of  his  bargain  with  Mr.  Trumbull  was  not 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  185 

true,  and  that  he  was  so  far  from  having  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  convention  to  which  the  Senator  had  alluded  that  he 
was  attending  court,  off  in  Tazewell  County,  when  it  was 
held.  That  was  all  there  was  of  Mr.  Douglas'  charges.  They 
had  not  an  inch  of  truth  to  stand  upon;  and  it  was  discovered 
immediately  after  the  debate  that  the  resolutions  which  Mr. 
Douglas  had  quoted  had  not  been  passed  in  Springfield  at  all, 
by  any  convention,  and  that,  although  they  had  been  uttered 
by  a  local  convention  in  the  town  of  Aurora,  they  were,  for 
the  purposes  used,  and  under  the  circumstances,  essentially  a 
forgery,  for  which  Mr.  Douglas  or  his  friends  were  guiltily 
responsible.  The  charge  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  conven 
tion,  that  he  made  a  bargain  with  Mr.  Trumbull,  that  he  was 
responsible  for  a  certain  set  of  anti-slavery  resolutions,  and 
that  the  resolutions  which  he  read  were  passed  by  the  conven 
tion  that  was  held  at  Springfield,  was  false  in  every  particular. 
Did  Mr.  Douglas  know  it  to  be  so  ?  Perhaps  the  only  reply 
that  it  is  proper  to  make  to  this  question  is  that  he  ought  to 
have  known  it  to  be  so. 

In  Mr.  Lincoln's  reply,  he  quoted  from  his  Peoria  speech 
made  in  1854,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made  in  this  history, 
to  show  his  exact  position  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the 
states  where  it  existed.  He  said  in  that  speech  that  he  had 
no  prejudice  against  the  southern  people.  They  were  just 
what  we  should  be  under  their  circumstances.  "  If  slavery 
did  not  now  exist  among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it. 
If  it  did  now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give  it 
up."  He  understood  how  difficult  it  was  to  get  rid  of  slavery, 
and  he  did  not  blame  them  for  not  doing  what  he  should  not 

O 

know  how  to  clo  himself.     He  acknowledged  his  constitutional 

o 

obligations,  and  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  would  be  willing 
to  give  them  a  law  for  reclaiming  fugitives,  provided  a  law 
could  be  made  which  would  not  be  more  likely  to  carry  a  free 
man  into  slavery  than  our  ordinary  criminal  laws  are  to  hang 
an  innocent  one.  This,  notwithstanding  he  hated  slavery  for 
the  monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself,  and  for  its  disgrace  to 
democratic  institutions.  But  all  these  facts  had  no  effect  upon 


186  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  mind  when  he  came  to  consider  the  question  of  extending 
slavery  over  territory  now  free.  There  was  no  more  excuse, 
in  his  opinion,  for  permitting  slavery  to  go  into  free  territory, 
than  for  reviving  the  African  slave-trade  by  law.  "  The  law 
which  forbids  the  bringing  a  slave  from  Africa,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "  and  that  which  has  so  long  forbidden  the  taking  of 
them  to  Nebraska,  can  hardly  be  distinguished,  on  any  moral 
principle."  The  principal  point  urged  against  Judge  Douglas 
in  this  speech  touched  his  devotion  to  Supreme  Court  decis 
ions.  A  decision  of  this  Court  was  to  him  a  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord."  There  was  no  appeal  from  it;  and  the  next  decision 
of  this  same  Court,  whatever  it  might  be,  was  indorsed  in 
advance.  It  is  simply  for  the  Supreme  Court  to  say  that  no 
state  under  the  Constitution  can  exclude  slavery,  and  he  must 
bow  to  the  decision,  just  as  when  it  says  no  territory  can  thus 
exclude  it.  Mr.  Lincoln  closed  his  remarks  on  this  point  by 
an  argumentum  ad  hominem,  equally  characteristic  and  clever : 

"  The  next  decision,  as  much  as  this,  will  be  a  Thus  sqith  the  Lord. 
There  is  nothing  that  can  divert  or  turn  him  away  from  this  decision. 
It  is  nothing  that  I  point  out  to  him  that  his  great  prototype,  General 
Jackson,  did  not  believe  in  the  binding  force  of  decisions.  It  is  nothing 
to  him  that  Jefferson  did  not  so  believe.  I  have  said  that  I  have  often 
heard  him  approve  of  Jackson's  course  in  disregarding  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  pronouncing  a  national  bank  constitutional.  He  says 
I  did  not  hear  him  say  so,  He  denies  the  accuracy  of  my  recollection. 
I  say  he  ought  to  know  better  than  I,  but  I  will  make  no  question  about 
this  thing,  though  it  still  seem?  to  me  that  I  heard  him  say  it  twenty 
times.  I  will  tell  him  though,  tliat  he  now  claims  to  stand  on  the  Cin 
cinnati  platform,  which  affirms  that  Congress  cannot  charter  a  national 
bank,  in  the  teeth  of  that  old  standing  decision  that  Congress  can  charter 
a  bank.  And  I  remind  him  of  another  piece  of  history  on  the  question 
of  respect  for  judicial  decisions,  and  it  is  a  piece  of  Illinois  history,  be 
longing  to  a  time  when  the  large  party  to  which  Judge  Douglas  belonged 
were  displeased  with  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  be 
cause  they  had  decided  that  a  Governor  could  not  remove  a  Secretary 
of  State.  You  will  find  the  whole  story  in  Ford's  History  of  Illinois; 
and  I  know  that  Judge  Douglas  will  not  deny  that  he  was  then  in  favor 
of  overslaughing  that  decision  by  the  mode  of  adding  five  new  Judges, 
so  as  to  vote  down  the  four  old  ones.  Not  only  so,  but  it  ended  in  the 
Judge's  sitting  down  on  that  very  bench  as  one  of  the  Jive  new  Judges  to  ~break 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  187 

down  the  four  old  ones.  It  was  in  this  way  precisely  that  he  got  his  title 
of  Judge.  Now,  when  the  Judge  tells  me  that  men  appointed  condi 
tionally  to  sit  as  members  of  a  court,  will  have  to  be  catechised  before 
hand  upon  some  subject,  I  say,  'You  know,  Judge;  you  have  tried  it.' 
When  he  says  a  court  of  this  kind  will  lose  the  confidence  of  all  men, 
will  be  prostituted  and  disgraced  by  such  a  proceeding,  I  say, '  You  know 
best,  Judge;  you  have  been  through  the  mill.'  But  I  cannot  shake 
Judge  Douglas'  teeth  loose  from  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Like  some 
obstinate  animal  (I  mean  no  disrespect,)  that  will  hang  on  when  he  has 
once  got  his  teeth  fixed ;  you  may  cut  off  a  leg,  or  you  may  tear  away 
an  arm,  still  he  will  not  relax  his  hold.  And  so  I  may  point  out  to 
the  Judge,  and  say  that  he  is  bespattered  all  over,  from  the  beginning 
of  his  political  life  to  the  present  time,  with  attacks  upon  judicial  decis 
ions — I  may  cut  off  limb  after  limb  of  his  public  record,  and  strive  to 
wrench  him  from  a  single  dictum  of  the  court — yet  I  cannot  divert  him 
from  it.  He  hangs,  to  the  last,  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  These 
things  show  there  is  a  purpose  strong  as  death  and  eternity  for  which  he 
'  adheres  to  this  decision,  and  for  which  he  will  adhere  to  all  oilier  decis 
ions  of  the  same  court." 

At  the  close  of  the  half  hour  which  Mr.  Douglas  employed 
in  his  reply  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  latter  was  literally  borne 
away  upon  the  shoulders  of  his  friends,  in  a  frenzy  of  enthu 
siasm,  a  fact  to  which  Mr.  Douglas  made  playful  allusion  a 
few  days  afterwards,  in  the  statement  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
so  much  frightened  that  he  had  to  be  taken  from  the  stand, 
and  was  laid  up  for  seven  days.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  too  simple, 
too  much  in  earnest,  and  too  sensitive,  to  take  this  badinage 
gracefully.  He  really  supposed  there  might  be  persons  who 
would  believe  it,  as  appeared  in  a  subsequent  speech,  in  which 
he  made  it  a  matter  of  complaint. 

At  the  Freeport  meeting,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  the  opening 
speech,  and  commenced  by  answering  the  interrogatories  which 
Mr.  Douglas  had  addressed  to  him  at  Ottawa,  based  upon  the 
declarations  of  the  Aurora  resolutions.  Mr.  Douglas  asked 
him  if  he  stood  pledged  now  to  the  same  details  of  policy  that 
he  did  in  1854 — details  which  he  drew  from  the  resolutions 
he  had  read ;  and  to  his  questions  Mr.  Lincoln  made  these 
replies,  seriatim :  that  he  was  not  then,  and  never  'had  been 
pledged  to  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave  law , 


188  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  he  was  not  then,  and  had  never  been,  pledged  against  the 
admission  of  any  more  slave  states;  that  he  did  not  stand 
pledged  against  the  admission  of  a  new  state  into  the  Union 
with  such  a  constitution  as  the  people  of  that  state  may  see 
fit  to  make ;  that  he  did  not  stand  pledged  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia ;  that  he  did  not  stand 
pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave  trade  between  the  dif 
ferent  states  ;  and  that  he  was  pledged  to  a  belief  in  the  right 
and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  United 
States  territories.  After  saying  that  he  had  replied  in  terms 
to  the  Judge,  and  that  he  was  not  "  pledged  "  to  any  of  these 
principles  or  measures,  he  further  said  that  he  would  not  hang 
upon  the  form  of  the  questions,  but  utter  what  he  did  think 
on  all  the  subjects  involved  in  them.  He  believed  the  southern 
people  wero  entitled,  under  the  Constitution,  to  a  congressional 
fugitive  slave  law ;  said  that  he  should  be  very  sorry  to  see 
any  more  slave  states  applying  for  admission  to  the  Union, 
and  declared  that  he  would  not  only  be  glad  to  see  slavery 
abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  he  believed  that 
Congress  had  the  constitutional  power  to  abolish  it  there. 
Having  answered  Mr.  Douglas'  questions — these  and  the  rer 
mainder — in  accordance  with  opinions  with  which  the  reader 
is  already  familiar,  he  was  ready  to  turn  questioner,  and  give 
the  Judge  something  to  do,  in  the  same  line  of  effort.  He 
had  already  consulted  with  his  friends  concerning  the  matter, 
and,  in  his  conversation  on  the  subject,  had  dropped  an  ex 
pression  which  showed  that  he  was  looking  beyond  the  sena 
torial  contest  for  the  grand  results  of  the  discussion.  In  Mr. 
Lincoln's  view  the  principal  point  of  debate  was  Mr.  Douglas' 
doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty,  in  connection  with  the  Dred 
Scott  decision — the  two  things  in  his  judgment  being  in  direct 
antagonism,  and  being,  in  reality,  a  shameful  fraud.  This  an 
tagonism  Mr.  Lincoln  proposed  to  present  in  the  form  of  inter 
rogatories,  but  his  friends  remonstrated.  "  If  you  put  that 
question  to  him,"  they  said,  "  he  will  perceive  that  an  answer, 
giving  practical  force  and  effect  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  in 
the  territories',  inevitably  loses  him  the  battle ;  and  he  will. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  189 

therefore  reply  by  offering  the  decision  as  an  abstract  princi 
ple,  but  denying  its  practical  application."  "  But,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "  if  he  does  that,  he  can  never  be  President."  His 
friends  replied,  "  that  is  not  your  lookout ;  you  are  after  the 
senatorship."  "  No,  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  I  am  killing  larger 
game.  The  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this."* 

Whether  Mr.  Lincoln  then  expected  to  be  the  republican 
candidate  for  the  presidency  in  1860,  there  are  no  means  of 
judging ;  but  that  he  intended  the  discussion  to  damage  Mr. 
Douglas'  presidential  prospects  there  is  no  doubt.  So  Mr. 
Lincoln  put  his  questions,  which,  in  their  order,  were  as  they 
follow : 

"  1.  If  the  people  of  Kansas  shall,  by  means  entirely  unobjectionable 
in  all  other  respects,  adopt  a  state  constitution,  and  ask  admission  into 
the  Union  under  it,  before  they  have  the  requisite  number  of  inhabit 
ants  according  to  the  English  bill — some  ninety-three  thousand — will 
you  vote  to  admit  them  ? 

"2.  Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  territory,  in  any  lawful  way, 
against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery 
from  its  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution? 

"3.  If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  shall  decide  that 
states  cannot  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  are  you  in  favor  of 
acquiescing  in,  adopting  and  following  such  decision,  as  a  rule  of  po 
litical  action  ? 

"4.  Are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring  additional  territory,  in  disregard 
of  how  such  acquisition  may  affect  the  nation  on  the  slavery  question  V  " 

To  the  first  question  Mr.  Douglas  replied  that  he  held  it  a 
sound  rule,  of  universal  application,  to  require  a  territory  to 
contain  the  requisite  population  for  a  member  of  Congress, 
before  it  is  admitted  as  a  state  into  the  Union ;  but  it  having 
been  decided  by  Congress  that  Kansas  had  population  enough 
for  a  slave  state,  he  held  that  she  had  enough  for  a  free  state. 
His  answer  to  the  second  question  was  in  brief,  this:  "It 
matters  not  what  way  the  Supreme  Court  may  hereafter  de 
cide,  as  to  the  abstract  question  whether  slavery  may  or  may 
not  go  into  a  territory  under  the  Constitution,  the  people  have 

*Scripps,  p.  28. 


190  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  lawful  means  to  introduce  it,  or  exclude  it  as  they  please, 
for  the  reason  that  slavery  cannot  exist  a  day,  or  an  hour, 
anywhere,  unless  it  is  supported  by  local  police  regulations. 
Those  police  regulations  can  only  be  established  by  the  local 
legislature;  and  if  the  people  are  opposed  to  slavery,  they 
will  elect  representatives  to  that  body  who  will,  by  unfriendly 
legislation,  effectually  prevent  the  introduction  of  it  into  their 
midst."  The  third  question  he  answered  by  stating  that  a 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  that  states  could  not  exclude 
slavery  from  their  limits,  would  "  be  an  act  of  moral  treason 
that  no  man  on  the  bench  would  ever  descend  to."  The  thing 
in  his  view  was  simply  impossible.  This  left  the  real  question 
unanswered.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  asked  him  whether  the 
Supreme  Court  would  or  could  make  such  a  decision,  but  had 
inquired  what  he  would  do  in  the  event  that  it  should.  To 
the  fourth  interrogatory  he  replied,  "Whenever  it  becomes 
necessary,  in  our  growth  and  progress,  to  acquire  more  terri 
tory,  I  am  in  favor  of  it,  without  reference  to  the  question  of 
slavery ;  and  when  we  have  acquired  it  I  will  leave  the  people 
free  to  do  as  they  please — either  to  make  it  slave  or  free  terri 
tory  as  they  prefer." 

To  the  answer  to  the  second  question  Mr.  Lincoln  re 
sponded  by  charging  Mr.  Douglas  with  changing  his  ground ; 
and  referred  to  the  record  to  prove  his  charge.  He  referred 
to  the  inquiry  made  by  Judge  Trumbull  of  Judge  Douglas  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  on  this  very  point,  when  the  former 
asked  the  latter  whether  the  people  of  a  territory  had  the 
lawful  power  to  exclude  slavery,  prior  to  the  formation  of  a 
constitution.  The  Judge's  reply  then  was  that  it  was  a  ques 
tion  to  be  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court.  The  question  has 
been  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court,  and  now  the  Judge,  by 
saying  that  the  people  can  exclude  slavery  if  they  choose, 
virtually  says  that  it  is  not  a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court 
but  a  question  for  the  people.  The  proposition  that  "slavery 
cannot  exist  a  day  or  an  hour  without  local  police  regulations  " 
is  historically  false,  even  in  the  case  of  Dred.  Scott  himself, 
who  was  held  in  Minnesota  territory  not  only  without  police 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  191 

regulations,  but  in  the  teeth  of  Congressional  legislation,  sup 
posed  to  be  valid  at  the  time.  The  absurdity  of  adhering  to 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  and  maintaining  popular  sovereignty 
at  the  same  time,  he  put  into  a  single  sentence  in  a  subsequent 
speech,  made  in  Ohio— a  sentence  which  contained  the  whole 
argument.  It  was  declaring,  he  said,  "no  less  than  that  a 
thing  may  lawfully  be  driven  away  from  a  place  where  it  has 
a  lawful  right  to  be." 

It  is  impossible  to  follow  to  their  conclusion  this  series  of 
debates  in  the  pages  of  this  volume.  Enough  has  been  writ 
ten  to  reveal  the  ground  of  the  two  antagonists,  the  merits 
of  the  ^questions  they  discussed  and  their  modes  of  conducting 
debate.  Into  the  side  questions  which  sprang  up  on  every 
fresh  occasion,  and  which  were  connected  with  persons  and 
local  politics,  it  is  not  possible,  and,  perhaps,  not  desirable,  to 
follow  the  debaters.  They  kept  their  appointments,  and  ful 
filled  the  terms  of  their  arrangement.  They  attracted  to 
them  immense  crowds,  wherever  they  appeared;  and  the 
whole  nation  looked  on  with  an  intense  interest.  There  has 
never  been  a  local  canvass  since  the  formation  of  the  govern 
ment  which  so  attracted  the  attention  of  the  politicians  of 
other  states  as  this.  It  was  the  key  note  of  the  coming  pres 
idential  campaign.  It  was  a  thorough  presentation  of  the 
issues  upon  which  the  next  national  battle  was  to  be  fought. 
The  eyes  of  all  the  eastern  states  were  turned  to  the  west 
where  young  republicanism  and  old  democracy  were  estab 
lishing  the  dividing  lines  of  the  two  parties,  and  preparing 
the  ground  for  the  great  struggle  soon  to  be  begun. 

To  say  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  victor  in  this  contest,  mor 
ally  and  intellectually,  is  simply  to  record  the  judgment  of  the 
world.  To  say  that  he  was  victor  in  every  way  before  the 
people  of  Illinois,  it  needs  only  to  be  recorded  that  he  received 
a  majority  in  the  popular  vote  over  Mr.  Douglas  of  four 
.thousand  eighty-five.  There  is  this  to  be  said,  however,  in 
connection  with  these  statements.  Whatever  the  advantages 
of  Mr.  Douglas  may  have  been,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  the  great 
advantage  of  belonging  to  a  new  and  aggressive  party,  wljich 


192  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

had  started  freshly  in  the  strife  for  power,  and  had  not  been 
corrupted  by  power.  It  had  not  lived  long  enough  to  depart 
from  the  principles  of  truth  and  justice  in  which  it  had  its 
birth.  Standing  on  the  ground  that  slavery  was  wrong  and 
that  its  perpetuation  would  be  a  calamity,  and  its  diffusion 
through  new  territory  a  crime,  Mr.  Lincoln  not  only  felt, 
but  knew,  that  he  was  right.  This  made  him  strong.  Mr. 
Douglas  was  looking  for  the  presidency,  and  knew  that  if  he 
should  ever  reach  and  grasp  the  prize  before  him,  he  must  do 
it  through  the  aid  of  the  slaveholding  states.  He  knew  that 
he  could  only  secure  this  support  by  a  certain  degree  of 
friendliness,  or  an  entire  indifference,  to  slavery.  He  intended 
to  ride  into  power  on  the  back  of  popular  sovereignty,  giving 
at  least  nominal  equality  to  slavery  and  freedom  in  the  terri 
tories,  while,  at  the  same  time,  endorsing  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  as  to  what  the  exact  rights  of  slavery  were, 
under  the  Constitution.  His  policy  was  not  only  that  of  the 
democratic  party  of  Illinois,  but  essentially  that  of  the  whole 
North.  He  boasted  of  this  on  one  occasion,  upon  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  retorted  the  charge  of  sectionalism.  Mr.  Douglas 
had  been  obliged  to  defer  so  much  to  the  spirit  of  freedom 
and  to  the  rights  of  free  labor  in  the  territories — had  been 
obliged  for  fear  of  defeat  to  go  so  far  from  the  original  path 
he  had  marked  out  for  himself — that  Mr.  Lincoln  called  his 
attention  to  the  fact  that  his  speeches  would  not  pass  current 
south  of  the  Ohio  so  readily  as  they  had  formerly  done, 
"Whatever  may  be  the  result  of  this  ephemeral  contest  be 
tween  Judge  Douglas  and  myself,"  said  he,  "I  see  the  day 
rapidly  approaching  when  his  pill  of  *  sectionalism,'  which  he 
has  been  thrusting  down  the  throats  of  republicans  for  years 
past,  will  be  crowded  down  his  own  throat."  It  was  undoubt 
edly  the  grand  aim  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  throughout  the  whole 
series  of  debates,  to  drive  Mr.  Douglas  into  such  an  open 
declaration  for  slavery  as  to  secure  his  defeat  for  the  senatorial 
office,  or,  failing  in  that,  to  compel  him  to  such  declarations 
on  behalf  of  freedom  as  would  spoil  him  as  a  southern  candi 
date  for  the  presidency.  "The  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  193 

hundred  of  this,"  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said  to  his  friends  before 
the  Freeport  debate.  He  saw  further  than  they.  He  was 
"killing  larger  game"  than  the  senatorship,  and  he  certainly 
did  kill,  or  assist  in  killing,  Judge  Douglas,  as  a  southern 
candidate  for  the  presidency. 

These  debates  of  these  two  champions,  respectively  of  the 
principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  of  party 
policy,  were  published  entire  as  a  campaign  document  in  the 
republican  interest,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the 
presidency,  without  a  word  of  comment,  the  people  being  left 
to  form  their  own  conclusions  as  to  the  merits  of  the  contro 
versy,  and  the  relative  ability  of  the  men  whom  it  represented. 

It  is  in  vain  to  look  for  any  better  presentation  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  republican  party,  or  a  better  definition  of  the 
issues  which  divided  it  from  the  democratic  party  of  the  time, 
than  are  to  be  found  in  these  speeches  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  They 
cover  the  whole  ground.  They  are  clear,  sound,  logical,  pow 
erful  and  exhaustive ;  and,  in  connection  with  two  or  three 
speeches  made  afterwards  in  Ohio  and  New  York,  form  the 
chief  material  on  which  his  reputation  as  an  orator  and  a  de 
bater  must  rest.  The  man  who  shall  write  the  story  of  the 
great  rebellion  on  behalf  of  human  slavery  must  go  back  to 
these  masterly  speeches  of  an  Illinois  lawyer  to  find  the  clear 
est  and  most  complete  statement  of  those  differences  between 
the  power  of  slavery  and  the  spirit  of  freedom — the  policy  of 
slavery  and  the  policy  of  freedom — which  ended,  after  expend 
itures  of  uncounted  treasure  and  unmeasured  blood,  in  the 
final  overthrow  of  the  accursed  institution. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  beaten  in  his  contest  for  the  seat  of  Mr. 
Douglas  in  the  Senate,  in  consequence  of  the  unfair  appor 
tionment  of  the  legislative  districts.  When  it  came  to  a  bal 
lot  in  the  legislature,  it  was  found  that  there  were  fourteen 
democrats  to  eleven  republicans  in  the  Senate,  and  forty  dem 
ocrats  to  thirty-five  republicans  in  the  House.  This  re-instated 
Mr.  Douglas ;  and  the  champion  of  the  republican  party  was 
defeated  after  a  contest  fought  by  him  with  wonderful  power 
and  persistence,  with  unfailing  fairness,  good  nature  and  mag- 
13 


194  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

nanimity,  and  with  a  skill  rarely  if  ever  surpassed.  He  had 
visited  every  part  of  the  state,  made  about  sixty  speeches, 
been  received  by  the  people  everywhere  with  unbounded  en 
thusiasm,  had  grown  strong  with  every  day's  exercise,  was 
conscious  that  he  had  worsted  his  antagonist  in  the  intellectual^ 
struggle,  and,  when  defeat  came,  he  could  not  have  been  oth^ 
erwise  than  disappointed.  On  being  asked  by  a  friend  how 
he  felt  when  the  returns  came  in  that  insured  his  defeat,  he 
replied  that  he  felt,  he  supposed,  very  much  like  the  stripling 
who  had  bruised  his  toe — "too  badly  to  laugh  and  too  big  to 
cry."  But  the  battle  of  1860  was  indeed  worth  a  hundred  of 
that,  and  to  it,  events  will  swiftly  lead  us. 


CHAPTEE   XIY. 

THE  winter  of  1858  and  1859  found  Mr.  Lincoln  at  leisure. 
His  absorption  in  political  pursuits  had  materially  interfered 
with  his  professional  business,  although  he  retained  all  that  he 
had  the  disposition  to  attend  to.  At  this  point  occurred  one 
of  those  strange  diversions  that  were  so  characteristic  of  the 
man.  He  sat  down  and  wrote,  in  the  form  of  a  lecture,  a 
comprehensive  history  of  inventions,  beginning  with  the 
handiwork  in  brass  and  iron  of  Tubal  Cain,  and  ending  with 
the  latest  products  of  inventive  art.  This  lecture  he  delivered 
at  Springfield,  and,  in  a  single  instance,  in  another  city,  but 
there  the  public  delivery  of  it  ceased.  "Whether  he  undertook 
this  to  detach  his  mind  from  subjects  which  had  held  it  so 
long,  or  whether  he  did  it  to  be  able  to  meet  the  invitations 
that  came  to  him  from  many  quarters  to  address  the  winter 
lyceums,  does  not  appear.  The  effort  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  a  satisfactory  one  to  himself,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it 
was  not  likely  to  be  particularly  attractive  to  the  lecture-going 
public.  Reading  lectures  and  delivering  stump  speeches  are 
very  different  styles  of  effort ;  and  the  most  effective  political 
orators  often  surprise  themselves  as  much  as  they  do  their  aud 
iences  by  their  dryness  and  dreariness  upon  the  platform  of 
the  lecturer.  The  facts  of  the  matter  are  principally  interest 
ing  as  showing  the  natural  drift  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  when 
diverted  from  professional  and  political  pursuits. 

This  diversion  was  only  temporary.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  be«- 
come  a  political  man.  Whatever  may  have  been  his  inclina- 


196  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

tions  at  this  time,  he  felt  that  he  was  in  the  hands  of  the  party 
to  which  he  had  just  given  the  ripest  and  best  efforts  of  his 
life.  He  was  a  representative  man,  and  was  already  regarded 
by  the  great  masses  of  the  new  party  at  the  West  as  their 
best  man  for  the  next  presidential  campaign.  His  senatorial 
.  contest  had  done  much  to  make  his  name  known  to  the  poli 
ticians  of  the  nation.  Political  men  everywhere  had  read  his 
masterly  debates  with  Senator  Douglas,  and  had  given  him  his 
position  among  the  best  politicians  and  most  notable  political 
orators  of  the  time.  While  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true  that 
east  of  the  Alleghanies  he  was  not  much  known  among  the 
people.  He  had  not  been  much  in  public  office ;  and  his  field 
of  action  and  influence  was  so  distant  that  they  had  heard  but 
little  about  him.  If  they  had  been  told  that  within  two  years 
Abraham  Lincoln  would  be  elected  president  of  the  United 
States,  three  out  of  every  four  would  have  inquired  who 
Abraham  Lincoln  was.  At  the  West  all  was  different.  Ev 
erybody  knew  "Old  Abe."  He  was  the  people's  friend — 
the  man  of  the  people — the  champion  of  freedom  and  free 
labor — the  man  who  had  beaten  the  "little  giant"  in  the  pop 
ular  vote  of  the  democratic  state  of  Illinois.  His  peculiari 
ties  were  as  well  known  to  the  people  of  the  West  as  if  he 
had  been  the  member  of  every  man's  family.  To  look  upon 
him  was  to  look  upon  a  lion.  To  shake  hands  with  him  or  to 
hear  him  speak,  was  a  great  privilege — a  subject  of  self-grat- 
ulation  or  neighborly  boasting. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  1859,  we  find  Mr.  Lincoln  answering 
a  letter  addressed  to  him  by  Dr.  Theodor  Canisius,  a  Ger 
man  citizen  of  Illinois,  who,  with  an  eye  to  the  future,  inquired 
concerning  Mr.  Lincoln's  views  of  the  constitutional  provision 
recently  adopted  in  Massachusetts,  in  relation  to  naturalized 
citizens,  and  whether  he  opposed  or  favored  a  fusion  of  the 
republicans  and  other  opposition  elements  in  the  approaching 
campaign  of  1860.  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  that,  while  he  had 
no  right  to  advise  the  sovereign  and  independent  state  of 
Massachusetts,  concerning  her  policy,  he  would  say  that  so 
far  as  he  understood  the  provision  she  had  consummated,  he 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN."  197 

was  against  its  adoption  in  Illinois,  and  in  every  other  place 
where  he  had  a  right  to  oppose  it.  "  As  I  understand  the 
spirit  of  our  institutions,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  it  is  designed 
to  promote  the  elevation  of  men.  I  am,  therefore,  hostile  to 
anything  that  tends. to  their  debasement.  It  is  well  known 
that  I  deplore  the  depressed  condition  of  the  blacks,  and  it 
would,  therefore,  be  very  inconsistent  for  me  to  look  with 
approval  upon  any  measure  that  infringes  upon  the  inalienable 
rights  of  white  men,  whether  or  not  they  are  born  in  another 
land,  or  speak  a  different  language  from  our  own."  As  to 
the  inquiry  touching  the  fusion  of  all  the  opposition  elements, 
he  was  in  favor  of  it,  if  it  could  be  done  on  republican  princi 
ples,  and  upon  no  other  condition.  "  A  fusion  upon  any  other 
platform,"  the  letter  proceeds,  "would  be  as  insane  as  unprin 
cipled.  It  would  thereby  lose  the  whole  North,  while  the 
common  enemy  would  still  have  the  support  of  the  entire 
South.  The  question  in  relation  to  men  is  different.  There 
Are  good  and  patriotic  men  and  able  statesmen  in  the  South 
whom  I  would  willingly  support,  if  they  would  place  them 
selves  on  republican  ground ;  but  I  shall  oppose  the  lowering 
of  the  republican  standard  even  by  a  hair's  breadth." 

It  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  connection  that  Massachusetts 
\vas  a  representative  republican  state,  and,  regarding  the  igno 
rant  foreign  population,  particularly  of  the  eastern  states,  as 
holding  the  balance  of  power  between  the  democratic  and 
republican  parties,  which  it  never  failed  to  exercise  in  the  in 
terest  of  the  former  and  in  the  support  of  African  slavery,  had 
instituted  measures  which  rendered  naturalization  a  more 
difficult  process.  This  embarrassed  the  republicans  of  the 
West,  who  were  associated  with  a  large  and  generally  intelli 
gent  German  population,  with  leanings  toward  the  republican 
party  rather  than  to  the  democratic.  Hence  this  letter  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  his  reply,  which  latter  undoubtedly  had  its  office 
in  shaping  public  opinion,  and  in  bringing  the  foreign  popula 
tion  of  the  West  into  hearty  sympathy  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself. 

It  was  during  this  year  that  the  movement  for  making  Mr. 


198  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  the  republican  candidate  for  the  presidency  took  form. 
He  was  present  as  a  spectator  at  the  Illinois  state  republican 
Convention  held  at  Decatur  on  the  tenth  of  May.  When  he 
entered  the  hall,  he  was  greeted  with  such  enthusiasm  as  few 
defeated  men  are  favored  with.  There  was  no  mistaking  the 
high  honor  and  warm  affection  in  which  the  audience  held 
him,  and  no  doubting  the  fact  that  they  regarded  that  which 
was  nominally  his  defeat  as  a  great  triumph,  whose  fruits 
would  not  long  be  delayed.  He  had  hardly  taken  his  seat 
when  Governor  Oglesby  of  'Decatur  announced  that  an  old 
democrat  of  Macon  County  desired  to  make  a  contribution  to 
the  convention.  The  offer  being  at  once  accepted,  two  old 
fence-rails  were  borne  into  the  convention,  gaudily  decorated, 
and  bearing  the  inscription:  "ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  the  rail 
candidate  for  the  presidency  in  1860.  Two  rails  from  a 
lot  of  three  thousand,  made  in  1830,  by  Thomas  Hanks  and 
Abe  Lincoln — whose  father  was  the  first  pioneer  of  Macon 
County." 

The  effect  of  this  upon  an  audience  already  excited  can  be 
imagined  by  those  only  who  have  been  familiar  with  the  effect 
of  similar  melo  dramatic  incidents  under  similar  circumstan 
ces.  The  cheers  were  prolonged  for  fifteen  minutes,  or  until 
the  strength  of  the  enthusiastic  assembly  was  exhausted. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  upon  to  explain  the  matter  of  the 
rails,  which  he  did,  repeating  the  story  already  in  the  reader's 
possession — the  story  of  his  first  work  in  Illinois,  when  he 
helped  to  build  a  cabin  for  his  father,  and  to  fence  in  a  field 
of  corn. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  great  men  who  are  candidates  for 
office,  that  appeals  must  be  made  by  them,  or  on  their  behalf, 
to  the  groundlings.  It  was  a  great  misfortune  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
that  he  was  introduced  to  the  nation  as  pre-eminently  a  rail- 
splitter,  and  that  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  his  political  for 
tunes  that  he  should  be  called  such.  There  is  no  question 
that  the  designation  belittled  him  in  the  eyes  of  all  people  of 
education  and  culture,  at  home  and  abroad.  And  this,  not 
because  there  was  any  prejudice  among  these  people  against 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LIXCOLX.  199 

labor,  and  not  because  they  attached  the  slightest  dishonor  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  on  account  of  his  early  poverty  and  humble  pur 
suits.  Splitting  rails  was  in  no  way  allied  to  the  duties  of  the 
presidency.  The  ability  to  split  rails  did  not  add  to  moral  or 
intellectual  power.  The  fact  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  split  rails 
did  not  increase  his  qualifications  for  office.  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself  regretted  that,  while  he  was  splitting  these  rails,  he 
had  not  been  in  school  or  college.  He  felt  that  he  shoultj 
have  been  very  much  better  fitted  for  the  great  duties  thai 
had  been  devolved  upon  him  if,  instead  having  devoted  the 
best  of  his  youth  to  splitting  rails  and  other  manual  labor,  h& 
had  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  a  thorough  education.  The 
country  took  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  estimate  of  his  friends ;  and 
those  friends  thrust  him  before  the  country  as  a  man  whose 
grand  achievement  was  the  splitting  of  many  rails.  It  took 
years  for  the  country  to  learn  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a 
boor.  It  took  years  for  them  to  unlearn  what  an  unwise  and 
boyish  introduction  of  a  great  man  to  the  public  had  taught 
them.  It  took  years  for  them  to  comprehend  the  fact  that 
in  Mr.  Lincoln  the  country  had  the  wisest,  truest,  gentlest, 
noblest,  most  sagacious  president  who  had  occupied  the  chair 
of  state  since  Washington  retired  from  it.  At  this  very  period 
he  said  to  Judge  Drummond  of  Chicago,  who  had  remarkecl 
to  him  that  people  were  talking  of  him  for  the  presidency :  "  It 
seems  as  if  they  ought  to  find  somebody  who  knows  more 
than  I  do.'*  The  rails  and  that  which  they  symbolized  were 
what  troubled  him,  and,  in  his  own  judgment,  detracted  from 
his  qualifications  for  the  high  office. 

The  latter  part  of  1859  and  the  first  months  of  1860  were 
broken  by  travel  through  various  portions  of  the  country, 
during  which  he  delivered  some  of  the  best  and  most  elaborate 
speeches  of  his  life.  He  visited  Kansas,  and  was  received  by 
her  people  with  the  honor  due  to  one  who  had  done  brave 
battle  for  her  freedom.  On  entering  Leavenworth,  although 
the  weather  was  most  inclement,  he  was  met  by  a  large  pro 
cession  of  people,  and  escorted  to  his  hotel,  while  a  dense 
crowd  gathered  upon  the  sidewalks  that  lined  the  passage. 


200  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

All  the  doors,  windows,  balconies  and  porticos  were  filled  with 
men,  women  and  children,  anxious  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
man  whose  speeches  they  had  read,  and  of  whom  they  had 
heard  so  much.  The  Leavenworth  Register,  in  its  notice  of 
the  occasion,  said: — "never  did  man  receive  such  honors  at 
the  hands  of  our  people,  and  never  did  our  people  pay  honors 
to  a  better  man,  or  one  who  has  been  a  truer  friend  of  Kan 
sas.'*  Here  he  made  a  speech,  and  the  following  paragraph, 
selected  from  it,  will  show  the  state  of  political  feeling  at  the 
time,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  relation  to  it: 

"But  you  democrats  are  for  the  Union:;  and  you  greatly  fear  the 
success  of  the  republicans  would  destroy  the  Union.  Why  ?  Do  the 
republicans  declare  against  the  Union?  Nothing  like  it.  Your  own 
statement  of  it  is  that  if  the  black  republicans  elect  a  president,  you 
'wont  stand  it.'  You  will  break  up  the  Union.  That  will  be  your  act, 
not  ours.  To  justify  it,  you  must  show  that  our  policy  gives  you  just 
cause  for  such  desperate  action.  Can  you  do  that?  When  you  attempt 
it,  you  will  find  that  our  policy  is  exactly  the  policy  of  the  men  who 
made  the  Union — nothing  more,  nothing  less.  Do  you  really  think  you 
are  justified  to  break  up  the  government  rather  than  have  it  adminis 
tered  as  it  was  by  Washington?  If  you  do,  you  are  very  unreasonable, 
and  more  reasonable  men  cannot  and  will  not  submit  to  you.  While 
you  elect  presidents,  wex  submit,  neither  breaking  nor  attempting  to 
break  up  the  Union.  If  we  shall  constitutionally  elect  a  president,  it 
will  be  our  duty  to  see  that  you  also  submit.  Old  John  Brown  has 
been  executed  for  treason  against  a  state.  We  cannot  object,  even 
though  he  agreed  with  us  in  thinking  slavery  wrong.  That  cannot  ex 
cuse  violence,  bloodshed  and  treason.  It  could  avail  him  nothing  that 
he  might  think  himself  right.  So,  if  we  constitutionally  elect  a  presi 
dent,  and,  therefore,  you  undertake  to  destroy  the  Union,  it  will  be  our 
duty  to  deal  with  you  as  old  John  Brown  has  been  dealt  with.  We 
shall  try  to  do  our  duty.  We  hope  and  believe  that  in  no  section  will  a 
majority  so  act  as  to  render  such  extreme  measures  necessary." 

In  September,  Mr.  Lincoln  paid  a  visit  to  Ohio,  following 
Mr.  Douglas,  and  made  two  speeches,  one  at  Columbus  and 
another  at  Cincinnati.  These  were  the  first  occasions  on 
which  he  had  ever  had  the  privilege  of  speaking  to  Ohio  aud 
iences,  and  the  introductions  to  these  speeches  betrayed  his 
diffidence.  In  Illinois  the  people  knew  and  understood  him. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN".  201 

He  had  won  a  reputation  there,  but,  as  he  traveled  eastward, 
he  felt  himself  away  from  home.  The  names  of  Chase,  Cor- 
win  and  Wade  were  in  his  mind — eminent  speakers,  with 
whose  voices  the  people  of  Ohio  were  familiar — and  he  felt 
that  it  would  be  difficult  for  him  to  establish  his  position  as  a 
political  orator  when  brought  into  close  comparison  with  them. 
His  style  of  speech  and  mode  of  reasoning  he  knew  to  be  his 
own;  and  he  had  misgivings  touching  their  reception  among 
those  whose  ideas  of  oratory  were  derived  from  other  models. 
But  these  misgivings  were  groundless.  His  plainness,  clear 
ness,  earnestness  and  thorough  comprehension  of  the  merits 
of  his  subject  secured  for  him  the  honest  admiration  and 
esteem  of  all  who  heard  him. 

At  Columbus,  he  devoted  himself  mainly  to  the  discussion 
of  a  few  points  of  an  elaborate  article  that  had  previously  ap 
peared  in  Harper's  Magazine,  from  the  pen  of  Judge  Douglas. 
In  this  article,  the  Senator  had  contrived  to  spread  throughout 
the  country  his  views  touching  the  relations  of  slavery  to  the 
Constitution.  It  was  the  old  talk  of  the  senatorial  campaign 
repeated  with  unimportant  variations,  though  with  some  new 
illustrations.  It  was  familiar  ground  with  Mr.  Lincoln ;  and, 
•while  his  speech  was  a  new  one,  it  would  convey  but  few  new 
ideas  to  those  who  had  read  his  speeches  of  the  previous  au 
tumn.  Mr.  Douglas  had  preceded  him  at  Cincinnati,  and 
had  alluded  to  him  there.  It  was  the  battle  of  Illinois  re 
peated  upon  the  soil  of  Ohio.  The  contestants  were  the 
same — the  questions  upon  which  they  took  issue  were  the 
eame.  Popular  sovereignty,  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the  right 
and  wrong  of  slavery,  negro  equality,  the  nationalization  of 
slavery — these  subjects,  presented  and  illustrated  in  every  pos 
sible  way  already,  were  again  made  the  themes  of  discussion 
by  these  two  men ;  and  the  people  of  Ohio  gave  them  abund 
ant  audience.  One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  most  effective  points  at 
Cincinnati  was  made  upon  the  assumption  that,  being  near 
the  Kentucky  border,  some  Kentuckians  were  present,  to 
whom  he  addressed  himself  in  an  attempt  to  prove  that  they 
ought  to  nominate  Judge  Douglas  at  Charleston,  as  peculiarly 


202  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  southern  candidate  for  the  presidency.  He  told  them  that 
Judge  Douglas  was  the  only  man  in  the  whole  nation  who 
gave  them  any  hold  of  the  free  states ;  and  then  he  proceeded 
to  show  that  Mr.  Douglas  was  as  sincerely,  and  quite  as  wisely, 
for  them,  as  they  were  for  themselves.  The  points  made 
in  this  part  of  the  speech  against  his  old  antagonist  were 
very  ingenious  and  very  damaging,  so  far  as  they  related 
to  his  standing  in  Ohio,  whatever  effect  they  may  have  had 
upon  the  possible  Kentuckians  in  the  audience.  After  telling 
them  that  they  must  take  Douglas  under  any  circumstances 
or  be  defeated,  and  that  it  was  possible,  if  they  did  take 
him,  that  they  might  be  beaten,  he  told  them  what  the  oppo 
sition  proposed  to  do  with  them  in  case  it  should  be  successful 
in  the  approaching  presidential  contest.  The  passage  is  worth 
quoting,  as  it  is  an  embodiment  of  the  policy  he  subsequently 
pursued  when,  the  opposition  having  succeeded,  he  found 
himself  endowed  with  the  responsibilities  of  office,  as  well 
as  a  prophecy  of  the  result  of  a  collision  then  conditionally 
proposed. 

"I  will  tell  you,  so  far  as  I  am  authorized  to  speak  for  the  opposition, 
what  we  mean  to  do  with  you.  We  mean  to  treat  you,  as  near  as 
we  possibly  can,  as  Washington,  Jefferson  and  Madison  treated  you. 
We  mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  to  interfere  with  your  in 
stitution;  to  abide  by  all  and  every  compromise  of  the  Constitution, 
and,  in  a  word,  coming  back  to  the  original  proposition,  to  treat  you,  so 
far  as  degenerated  men  (if  we  have  degenerated)  may,  according  to  the 
examples  of  those  noble  fathers — Washington,  Jefferson  and  Madison. 
We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as  good  as  we ;  that  there  is  no 
difference  between  us  other  than  the  difference  of  circumstances.  We 
mean  to  recognize  and  bear  in  mind  always  that  you  have  as  good 
hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or  as  we  claim  to  have,  and 
treat  you  accordingly.  We  mean  to  marry  your  girls  when  we  have  a 
chance — the  white  ones  I  mean — and  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that 
I  once  did  have  a  chance  in  that  way. 

"I  have  told  you  what  we  mean  to  do.  I  want  to  know,  now,  when 
that  thing  takes  place,  what  you,  mean  to  do.  I  often  hear  it  intimated 
that  you  mean  to  divide  the  Union  whenever  a  republican  or  anything 
like  it  is  elected  president  of  the  United  States.  [A  voice — '  That  is 
so.']  '  That  is  so/  one  of  them  says ;  I  wonder  if  he  is  a  Kentuckian  ? 


LIFE   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  203 

i 

[A  voice—'  He  is  a  Douglas  man.']  Well,  then,  I  want  to  know  what 
you  are  going  to  do  with  your  half  of  it  ?  Are  you  going  to  split  the 
Ohio  down  through,  and  push  your  half  off  a  piece  ?  Or  are  you  going 
to  keep  it  right  alongside  of  us  outrageous  fellows?  Or  are  you  going 
to  build  up  a  wall  some  way  between  your  country  and  ours,  by  which 
that  movable  property  of  yours  can  't  come  over  here  any  more,  to  the 
danger  of  your  losing  it?  Do  you  think  you  can  better  yourselves  on 
that  subject,  by  leaving  us  here  under  no  obligation  whatever  to  return 
those  specimens  of  your  movable  property  that  come  hither  ?  You  have 
divided  the  Union  because  we  would  not  do  right  with  you,  as  you 
think,  upon  that  subject ;  when  we  cease  to  be  under  obligations  to  do 
anything  for  you,  how  much  better  off  do  you  think  you  will  be  ?  Will 
you  make  war  upon  us  and  kill  us  all  ?  Why,  gentlemen,  I  think  you 
are  as  gallant  and  as  brave  men  as  live  ;  that  you  can  fight  as  bravely  in 
a  good  cause,  man  for  man,  as  any  other  people  living;  that  you  have 
shown  yourselves  capable  of  this  upon  various  occasions;  but  man  for 
man,  you  are  not  better  than  we  are,  and  there  are  not  so  many  of  you 
as  there  are  of  us.  You  will  never  make  much  of  a  hand  at  whipping  us. 
If  we  were  fewer  in  numbers  than  you,  I  think  that  you  could  whip  usj 
if  we  were  equal  it  would  likely  be  a  drawn  battle ;  but  being  inferior 
in  numbers,  you  will  make  nothing  by  attempting  to  master  us." 

It  is  proper  to  say  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Judge  Douglas  that 
no  two  men  in  the  nation  better  apprehended  the  real  nature 
of  the  struggle  between  the  North  and  South  than  they.  Mr. 
Douglas,  so  far  back  as  the  date  of  the  abrogation  of  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise,  foresaw  the  coming  conflict,  and  by  that 
measure  attempted  to  avert  it.  His  bringing  forward  that 
measure  at  a  time  when  the  South  did  not  demand  it,  could 
Lave  been  from  no  motive  other  than  his  wish  to  provide 
ground  upon  which  the  northern  and  southern  democracy 
could  stand  together,  in  the  presidential  contest  of  1860,  when 
it  was  his  expectation  to  be  their  candidate.  Slavery  was 
becoming  discontented  under  the  conviction  that  it  was  about 
to  lose  its  power.  It  found  itself  either  legally  or  practically 
shut  out  of  the  national  domain.  It  is  not  at  all  improbable 
that  the  Senator  knew  something  of  the  intrio-ues  of  those 

c5  O 

who  were  bent  on  disunion.  It  was  then  that  he  invented 
"popular  sovereignty" — what  he  was  accustomed  to  call  his 
"  great  principle  " — and  there  was  indeed  nothing  foolish  in  the 


204  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

tenacity  with  which  he  clung  to  it.  It  was  his  only  ground 
of  hope  for  election  to  the  presidency.  He  had  no  personal 
responsibility  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  It  was  not  for  him 
to  say  what  the  rights  of  slavery  were  among  the  people  of 
a  territory ;  but  he  was  willing  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
giving  slavery  and  freedom  the  same  rights.  There  was  great 
plausibility  in  his  view,  and  he  had  little  difficulty  in  car 
rying  his  party  with  him.  It  was  a  sort  of  neutral  ground — 
speciously  it  was  catholic  ground.  His  intention  was  to  give 
slavery  a  chance  to  enter  territory  then  free, — territory  forever 
set  apart  to  freedom.  If  he  did  not  intend  to  give  this  chance, 
his  movement  was  without  motive.  On  this  chance,  he  in 
tended,  without  doubt,  to  build  up  a  claim  upon  southern 
support ;  but  he  had  a  heavy  load  to  carry,  as  events  proved. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  thorn  in  his  side.  If  he  spoke  in  Illinois, 
Mr.  Lincoln  challenged  him  to  debate,  and  exposed  his  falla 
cies.  If  he  went  to  Ohio,  Mr.  Lincoln  followed  close  upon 
his  heels.  If  he  betook  himself  to  a  New  York  publication, 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  measures  practically  to  meet  him  there. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  opportunity  to  meet  his  antagonist  in  the 
press  of  New  York  came  through  an  invitation  to  speak  in 
Brooklyn,  at  Mr.  Beecher's  church.  This  speech,  which  it  was 
finally  concluded  should  be  delivered  at  the  Cooper  Institute, 
in  New  York,  was  by  many  regarded  as  the  best  he  ever 
made.  It  was  the  last  elaborate  speech  of  his  life,  and  was 
spread  broadcast  over  the  country  by  the  press  of  the  city. 

Mr.  Lincoln  arrived  in  the  great  metropolis  on  the  25th  of 
February,  1860.  He  expected,  as  has  been  stated,  to  speak 
at  Mr.  Beecher's  church  in  Brooklyn,  and  had  prepared  his 
address  with  some  reference  to  the  place.  On  learning  that 
he  was  expected  to  speak  in  New  York,  he  said  he  must  re^- 
view  his  speech.  He  reached  the  Astor  House  on  Saturday, 
and  spent  the  whole  day  in  making  such  modifications  of  his 
manuscript  as  seemed  necessary,  under  the  change  of  circum 
stances.  On  Sunday,  he  attended  upon  Mr.  Beecher's  preach 
ing,  and  seemed  to  take  great  satisfaction  in  the  services. 
When  waited  upon  on  Monday,  by  representative  members 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  205 

of  the  Republican  Club,  under  whose  auspices  he  was  to  ap 
pear,  he  was  found  encased  in  a  new  and  badly  wrinkled  suit 
of  black,  which  had  evidently  spent  too  much  time  in  a  small 
valise.  He  talked  freely  of  the  unbecoming  dress,  and,  like  a 
boy,  expressed  his  surprise  at  finding  himself  in  the  great  city. 
On  being  applied  to  for  slips  containing  the  speech  of  the  eve 
ning,  he  showed  that  he  was  not  familiar  with  the  habit  of 
eastern  speakers  of  supplying  such  slips  to  the  press  in  ad 
vance,  and  even  expressed  the  doubt  whether  any  of  the  papers 
would  care  to  publish  it  entire.  During  the  interview,  he 
referred  frequently  to  Mr.  Douglas,  and  in  so  kind  and  cor 
dial  a  manner  that  it  was  impossible  to  regard  him  as  that 
gentleman's  personal  enemy  in  any  sense.* 

Being  at  leisure  during  the  day,  he  accepted  an  invitation 
to  ride  about  the  city.  Some  of  the  more  important  streets 
were  passed  through,  and  a  number  of  large  establishments 
visited.  At  one  place,  he  met  an  old  acquaintance  from  Illi 
nois,  whom  he  addressed  with  an  inquiry  as  to  how  he  had 
fared  since  leaving  the  West.  "I  have  made  a  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars,  and  lost  all,"  was  his  reply.  Then  turning  ques 
tioner  he  said:  "How  is  it  with  you,  Mr.  Lincoln?"  "Oh 
very  well,"  said  he;  "I  have  the  cottage  at  Springfield,  and 
about  eight  thousand  dollars  in  money.  If  they  make  me 
vice-president  with  Seward,  as  some  say  they  will,  I  hope  I 
shall  be  able  to  increase  it  to  twenty  thousand ;  and  that  is  as 
much  as  any  man  ought  to  want." 

In  a  photographic  establishment  on  Broadway,  he  met  and 
was  introduced  to  George  Bancroft,  the  historian.  The  con 
trast  which  he  presented  in  his  person  and  manner  to  this 
gentleman  was  certainly  not  to  his  advantage ;  but  his  bluff, 
hearty  way  carried  all  before  it.  He  informed  Mr.  Bancroft 
that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Massachusetts  where  he  had  a  son 
in  college,  who,  if  report  were  true,  already  knew  much  more 
than  his  father. 

He  was  to  speak  at  Cooper  Institute  that  night,  and  having 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  great  capital  and  of  its  gigantic  in- 
*R.  C.  McCormick,  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 


206  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

terests  and  affairs,  it  is  not  strange  that  he  should  have  been 
oppressed  with  a  sense  of  his  own  insignificance.  It  was  one 
of  his  peculiarities  that,  while  he  was  the  subject  of  the  most 
exalted  aspirations  and  ambitions,  and  the  ready  undertaker 
of  the  highest  and  most  difficult  tasks,  he  always  bore  about 
with  him  a  sense  of  his  imperfections,  and  experienced  a  sort 
of  surprise  at  every  success.  Indeed,  his  triumphs  became 
the  subjects  of  his  study.  They  really  puzzled  him;  and 
frequent  conversations  with  others  betrayed  his  desire  to  find 
the  secrets  of  his  own  power. 

But  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  more  curious  concerning  himself,  or 
concerning  the  new  scenes  among  which  he  found  himself,  than 
the  people  of  New  York  were  concerning  him.  There  was 
a  great  and  general  curiosity  to  see  and  hear  him :  and  when 
he  entered  the  hall  he  found  the  platform  covered  with  the 
republican  leaders  of  the  city,  and  of  Brooklyn,  and,  in  his 
audience,  many  ladies.  The  venerable  William  Cullen  Bryant 
presided,  and  in  introducing  the  speaker  said:  "It  is  a  grate 
ful  office  that  I  perform,  in  introducing  to  you  an  eminent 
citizen  of  the  West,  hitherto  known  to  you  only  by  reputa 
tion."  There  was  nothing  in  the  introduction,  however, 
which  pleased  Mr.  Lincoln  so  much  as  Mr.  Bryant's  'state 
ment  in  the  next  day's  Evening  Post,  (of  which  he  was  the 
editor)  that  for  the  publication  of  such  words  of  weight  and 
wisdom  as  those  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  pages  of  that  journal 
were  "indefinitely  elastic." 

Mr.  Lincoln  began  his  address  in  a  low,  monotonous  tone, 
but  gaining  confidence  in  the  respectful  stillness,  his  tones, 
that  had  long  been  keyed  to  out-of-door  efforts,  rose  in  strength 
and  gained  in  clearness,  until  every  ear  heard  every  word. 
His  style  of  speech  was  so  fresh,  his  mode  of  statement  was 
so  simple,  his  illustrations  were  so  quaint  and  peculiar,  that 
the  audience  eagerly  drank  in  every  sentence.  The  back 
woods  orator  had  found  one  of  the  most  appreciative  audiences 
he  had  ever  addressed,  and  the  audience  gave  abundant  testi 
mony  that  they  were  listening  to  the  utterances  of  a  master. 

The  speech  which  Mr.  Lincoln  made  on  this  occasion  must 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  207 

have  cost  him  much  labor  in  the  preparation.  The  historical 
Study  which  it  involved — study  that  Led  into  unexplored  fields, 
and  fields  very  difficult  of  exploration — must  have  been  very 
great;  but  it  was  intimate  and  complete.  Gentlemen  who 
afterward  engaged  in  preparing  the  speech  for  circulation  as 
a  campaign  document  were  much  surprised  by  the  amount  of 
research  that  it  required  to  be  able  to  make  the  speech,  and 
were  very  much  wearied  with  the  work  of  verifying  its  his 
torical  statements  in  detail.  They  were  weeks  in  finding  the 
works  consulted  by  him. 

As  a  text  for  the  subject  of  his  discourse,  he  took  the  words 
of  Senator  Douglas,  uttered  in  a  speech  at  Columbus,  Ohio, 
the  previous  autumn,  viz :  "  Our  fathers  when  they  framed  the 
government  under  which  we  live,  understood  this  question 
(the  question  of  slavery)  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than 
we  do  now."  To  this  statement  the  speaker  agreed,  so  that 
he  and  the  senator  had  a  common  starting  point  for  discussion. 
The  inquiry  was,  simply :  what  was  the  understanding  those 
fathers  had  of  the  question  mentioned  ?  As  questions  prelimin 
ary  to  this  inquiry  he  gave  these :  "  what  is  the  frame  of  gov 
ernment  under  which  we  live?"  and  "who  were  our  fathers 
who  framed  the  Constitution?"  The  frame  of  government 
is  the  Constitution  itself,  consisting  of  the  original,  framed 
in  1787,  and  twelve  subsequent  amendments,  ten  of  which 
were  framed  in  1789.  The  thirty-nine  men  who  framed  the 
original  Constitution  are  legitimately  to  be  called  the  fathers, 
and  these  he  took  as  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  govern 
ment  under  which  we  live."  The  question  fully  written 
out,  which  Senator  Douglas  thought  these  men  understood 
better  than  we  do,  was :  "  Does  the  proper  division  of  local 
from  federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbid 
the  federal  government  control  as  to  slavery  in  our  federal 
territories?" 

From  this  point  Mr.  Lincoln  went  on  to  draw  from  the  his 
tory  of  Congress  every  recorded  act  of  these  thirty-nine  men 
on  the  question  of  slavery.  Question  after  question  upon 
which  these  men  acted  was  stated  in  brief,  and  it  was  found 


208  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

that,  of  the  thirty-nine  fathers,  twenty-one,  a  clear  majority, 
so  acted  that  they  would  be  guilty  of  perjury  if  they  did  not 
believe  that  the  federal  government  had  power  to  control 
slavery  in  the  territories.  Two  voted  against  special  meas 
ures,  but  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  show  whether  they  believed 
the  government  possessed  this  power  or  not.  Of  the  remain 
ing  sixteen,  there  is  no  record,  but  it  is  fair  to  conclude  they 
had  the  same  understanding  with  the  majority,  particularly  as 
they  included  some  of  the  most  noted  anti-slavery  men  of  the 
time,  among  whom  were  Benjamin  Franklin,  Alexander  Ham 
ilton  and  Gouverneur  Morris. 

The  historical  argument  was  entirely  unanswerable.  It 
was  a  solid  and  logical  statement  of  facts  and  conclusions  that 
no  sane  man  would  undertake  to  controvert.  The  first  third 
of  the  speech  was  devoted  to  this  historical  argument,  and 
the  remainder  in  about  equal  proportions  to  addresses  to  the 
southern  people,  and  to  the  republicans.  His  remarks  ad 
dressed  particularly  to  the  South  were  in  the  kindest  spirit, 
but  they  were  charged  with  a  force  of  argument  and  statement 
that  is  wonderful.  It  is  well  that  Mr.  Lincoln  be  permitted 
to  state  his  own  attitude  toward  those  to  whom  he  was  des 
tined  to  come  intc  such  strange  and  momentous  relations. 
He  said: 

"You  say  we  are  sectional.  We  deny  it.  That  makes  an  issue; 
and  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  you.  You  produce  your  proof;  and 
what  is  it?  Why,  that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your  section — gets 
no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is  substantially  true ;  but  does  it 
prove  the  issue?  If  it  does,  then,  in  case  we  should,  without  change  of 
principle,  begin  to  get  votes  in  your  section,  we  should  thereby  cease  to 
be  sectional.  You  cannot  escape  this  conclusion ;  and  yet,  are  you  will 
ing  to  abide  by  it?  If  you  are,  you  will  probably  soon  find  that  we 
have  ceased  to  be  sectional,  for  we  shall  get  votes  in  your  section  this 
very  year.  You  will  then  begin  to  discover,  as  the  truth  plainly  is,  that 
your  proof  does  not  touch  the  issue.  The  fact  that  we  get  no  votes  in 
your  section  is  a  fact  of  your  making,  and  not  of  ours.  And  if  there 
be  fault  in  that  fact,  that  fault  is  primarily  yours,  and  remains  so  until 
you  show  that  we  repel  you  by  some  wrong  principle  or  practice.  If 
we  do  repel  you  by  any  wrong  principle  or  practice,  the  fault  is  ours; 
but  this  brings  us  to  where  you  ought  to  have  started — to  a  discussion 


LIFE   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  209 

of  the  right  or  wrong  of  our  principle.  If  our  principle,  put  in  prac 
tice,  would  wrong  your  section  for  the  benefit  of  ours,  or  for  any  other 
object,  then  our  principle,  and  we  with  it,  are  sectional,  and  are  justly 
opposed  and  denounced  as  such.  Meet  us,  then,  on  the  question  of 
whether  our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would  wrong  your  section;  and 
so  meet  it  as  if  it  were  possible  that  something  may  be  said  on  our  side. 
Do  you  accept  the  challenge  ?  No  ?  Then  you  really  believe  that  the 
principle  which  our  fathers,  who  framed  the  government  under  which, 
we  live,  thought  so  clearly  right  as  to  adopt  it,  and  indorse  it  again  and 
again  upon  their  official  oaths,  is,  in  fact,  so  clearly  wrong  as  to  demand 
your  condemnation  without  a  moment's  consideration. 

"  Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the  warning  against  sec 
tional  parties  given  by  Washington  in  his  Farewell  Address.  Less  than 
eight  years  before  Washington  gave  that  warning,  he  had,  as  President 
of  the  United  States,  approved  and  signed  an  act  of  Congress  enforcing 
the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory,  which  act  em 
bodied  the  policy  of  the  government  upon  that  subject,  up  to  and  at 
the  very  moment  he  penned  that  warning;  and  about  one  year  after  he 
penned  it  he  wrote  Lafayette  that  he  considered  that  prohibition  a  wise 
measure,  expressing,  in  the  same  connection,  his  hope  that  we  should 
some  time  have  a  confederacy  of  free  states.  »  - 

"  Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  sectionalism  has  since  arisen 
upon  this  same  subject,  is  that  warning  a  weapon  in  your  hands  against 
us,  or  in  our  hands  against  you?  Could  Washington  himself  speak, 
would  he  cast  the  blame  of  that  sectionalism  upon  us,  who  sustain  his 
policy,  or  upon  you,  who  repudiate  it  ?  We  respect  that  warning  of 
Washington,  and  we  commend  it  to  you,  together  with  his  example 
pointing  to  the  right  application  of  it. 

**  But  you  say  you  are  conservative — eminently  conservative — while 
we  are  revolutionary,  destructive,  or  something  of  the  sort.  What  is 
conservatism  ?  Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  old  and  tried  against  the  new 
and  untried  ?  We  stick  to,  contend  for,  the  identical  old  policy  on  the 
point  in  controversy  which  was  adopted  by  our  fathers  who  framed  the 
government  under  which  we  live ;  while  you,  with  one  accord,  reject, 
and  scout,  and  spit  upon  that  old  policy,  and  insist  upon  substituting 
something  new.  True,  you  disagree  among  yourselves  as  to  what  that 
substitute  shall  be.  You  have  considerable  variety  of  new  propo 
sitions  and  plans,  but  you  are  unanimous  in  rejecting  and  denouncing 
the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  Some  of  you  are  for  reviving  the  foreign 
slave-trade ;  some  for  a  congressional  slave-code  for  the  territories ; 
some  for  Congress  forbidding  the  territories  to  prohibit  slavery  within 
their  limits;  some  for  maintaining  slavery  in  the  territories  through  the 
Judiciary;  some  for  the  'gur-reat  pur-rinciple '  that,  'if  one  man  would 
enslave  another,  no  third  man  should  object,'  fantastically  called  '  popu- 
14 


210  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

I 

lar  sovereignty;'  but  never  a  man  among  you  in  favor  of  federal  pro 
hibition  of  slavery  in  federal  territories,  according  to  the  practice  of 
our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live.  Not  one 
of  all  your  various  plans  can  show  a  precedent  or  an  advocate  in  the 
century  within  which  our  government  originated.  Consider,  then, 
whether  your  claim  of  conservatism  for  yourselves,  and  your  charge  of 
destructiveness  against  us,  are  based  on  the  most  clear  and  stable  foun 
dations. 

"  Again,  you  say  we  have  made  the  slavery  question  more  prominent 
than  it  formerly  was.  We  deny  it.  We  admit  •that  it  is  more  promi 
nent,  but  we  deny  that  we  made  it  so.  It  was  not  we,  but  you,  who 
discarded  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  W^e  resisted,  and  still  resist, 
your  innovation;  and  thence  comes  the  greater  prominence  of  the 
question.  Would  you  have  that  question  reduced  to  its  former  propor 
tions?  Go  back  to  that  old  policy.  What  has  been  will  be  again, 
under  the  same  conditions.  If  you  would  have  the  peace  of  the  old 
times,  re-adopt  the  precepts  and  policy  of  the  old  times." 

Alluding  to  their  threats  to  break  up  the-  Union  if  slavery 
should  be  shut  out  of  the  territories,  he  said : 

"  In  that  supposed  event,  you  say  yon  will  destroy  the  Union ;  and 
then  you  say  the  great  crime  of  having  destroyed  it  will  be  upon  us ! 
That  is  cool.  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my  ear,  and  mutters 
through  his  teeth :  *  Stand  and  deliver,  or  I  shall  kill  you,  and  then  you 
will  be  a  murderer ! '  To  be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded  of  me — 
my  money — was  my  own ;  and  I  had  a  clear  right  to  keep  it ;  but  it  was 
no  more  thy  own  than  my  vote  is  my  own;  and  threat  of  death  to  me 
to  extort  my  money,  and  threat  of  destruction  to  the  Union  to  extort 
my  vote,  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  in  principle." 

Certainly  this  illustration  disposed  of  the  whole  question  as 
to  who  would  be  responsible  for  the  destruction  of  the  Union, 
under  the  circumstances  stated. 

His  words  to  the  republicans  were  words  of  profoundest 
wisdom.  He  told  them  that  nothing  would  satisfy  the  South 
but  to  cease  calling  slavery  wrong,  and  to  join  with  them  in 
calling  it  right,  and  to  do  it  thoroughly  by  acts  as  well  as 
words.  "  We  must  arrest  and  return  their  slaves  with  greedy 
pleasure.  "We  must  pull  down  our  free  state  constitutions. 
The  whole  atmosphere  must  be  disinfected  from  all  taint  of 
opposition  to  slavery,  before  they  will  cease  to  believe  that  all 


LIFE   OF   ABEAHAM   LINCOLN.  211 

their  troubles  proceed  from  us."  He  continued:  "I  am  quite 
aware  they  do  not  state  their  case  precisely  in  this  way.  Most 
of  them  would  probably  say  to  us,  'let  us  alone,  do  nothing 
to  us,  and  say  what  you  please  about  slavery.'  But  we  do 
let  them  alone — have  never  disturbed  them — so  that,  after  all, 
it  is  what  we  say  that  dissatisfies  them.  They  will  continue 
to  accuse  us  of  doing  until  we  cease  saying."  After  saying 
that  we  could  not  consistently  deny  the  South  in  its  most  ex 
treme  demands,  on  any  ground  except  the  wrong  of  slavery,  he 
put  the  case  forcibly,  as  follows :  "  If  slavery  is  right,  all  words, 
acts,  laws  and  constitutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong, 
and  should  be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we 
cannot  justly  object  to  its  nationality — its  universality;  if  it  is 
wrong,  they  cannot  justly  insist  upon  its  extension,  its  enlarge 
ment.  All  they  ask,  we  could  readily  grant  if  we  thought 
slavery  right;  all  we  ask  they  could  as  readily  grant  if  they 
thought  slavery  wrong.  Their  thinking  it  right  and  our  think 
ing  it  wrong  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which  depends  the  whole 
controversy."  The  closing  paragraph  is  equally  remarkable 
for  its  wit  and  wisdom — its  pith  and  patriotism : 

"  Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford  to  let  it  alone  where 
it  is,  because  that  much  is  due  to  the  necessity  arising  from  its  actual 
presence  in  the  nation ;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will  prevent  it, 
allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  territories,  and  to  overrun  us  here 
in  these  free  states  ?  If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand 
by  our  duty,  fearlessly  and  effectively.  Let  us  be  diverted  by  none  of 
those  sophistical  contrivances  wherewith  we  are  so  industriously  plied 
and  belabored — contrivances  such  as  groping  for  some  middle  ground 
between  the  right  and  the  wrong,  vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who 
should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead  man — such  as  a  policy  of 
'don't  care'  on  a  question  about  which  all  true  men  do  care — such  as 
Union  appeals  beseeching  true  Union  men  to  yield  to  disunionists,  re 
versing  the  divine  rule,  and  calling  not  the  sinners,  but  the  righteous  to 
repentance — such  as  invocations  to  Washington,  imploring  men  to  un 
say  what  Washington  said,  and  undo  what  Washington  did.  Neither 
let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations  against  us,  nor 
frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the  Government,  nor  of 
dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in 
that  faith,  let  us,  to  the  end,  dare  to  do  our  duty,  as  we  understand  it." 


212  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN". 

The  speech  was,  in  the  popular  acceptation  of  the  phrase,  a 
great  success.  Through  all  his  passages  of  close  and  crowded 
reasoning,  his  audience  followed  him  with  an  interest  that  pro 
duced  the  prqfoundest  silence,  and  at  every  triumphant  es 
tablishment  of  a  point  broke  out  into  sudden  and  hearty 
applause.  Those  who  came  from  motives  of  curiosity  went 
away  thoughtful.  Many  who  had  entered  the  hall  in  doubt 
as  to  their  duty,  went  away  with  their  path  bright  before  them. 
Most  of  all  were  the  New  York  politicians  affected;  and  it  is 
not  to  be  doubted  that  the  impressions  of  that  evening  left 
them  convinced  that  if  Mr.  Seward,  the  man  of  their  choice, 
should  be  set  aside,  as  the  republican  candidate  for*  the  presi 
dency,  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  favorite -of  the  West,  would  be  abund 
antly  worthy  of  their  support. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  speech,  a  few  friends  took  the 
speaker  to  the  rooms  of  the  Atheneum  Club  for  supper.  Mr. 
Lincoln  appreciated  his  success,  and  was  in  good  humor  over 
it.  He  was  as  happy  at  the  table  as  he  was  upon  the  plat 
form — full  of  good  humor,  and  abounding  with  jokes  and 
pleasant  stories.  Throwing  off  all  reserve,  and  opening  his 
heart  like  a  boy,  he  talked  long  and  late ;  and  when  he  parted 
with  his  friends  for  the  night  they  were  as  much  charmed  with 
the  man  as  they  had  been  instructed  by  his  speech  and  enter 
tained  by  his  conversation* 

The  papers  of  the  city  were  full  of  his  address  and  with 
comments  upon  it  the  next  day.  The  Illinois  lawyer  was  a 
lion.  Critics  read  the  speech,  and  marveled  at  its  pure  and 
compact  English,  its  felicity  of  statement  and  its  faultless  logic. 
It  was  read  during  the  day  not  only  by  New  York  but  by  . 
nearly  all  New  England. 

After  the  speech,  he  spent  several  days  in  New  York,  famil 
iarizing  himself  with  its  wonders.  Some  of  his  explorations 
he  made  alone,  and  on  one  occasion  found  his  way  into  the 
Sunday  School  of  the  Five  Points  Mission.  The  superin 
tendent  noticing  his  look  of  interest  in  the  proceedings,  invi 
ted  him  to  speak  to  the  children.  His  remarks  interested  his 
young  audience  so  much  that  on  every  attempt  to  stop  they 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  213 

cried  out  "go  on,  oh!  do  go  on!"  None  knew  who  he  was, 
and  as  he  turned  to  depart,  the  superintendent  inquired  his 
name.  "Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois,"  was  the  answer. 

Invitations  were  received  by  Mr.  Lincoln  from  many  places 
in  New  England,  to  speak  on  political  questions.  On  the  fifth 
of  March,  he  spoke  at  Hartford,  in  the  city  hall,  and  was  es 
corted  to  the  hall  by  the  first  company  of"  Wide-  Awakes  "  ever 
organized  in  the  country.  This  organization  became  universal 
throughout  the  free  states,  but  was  intended  only  for  campaign 
service.  He  had  an  immense  audience  in  Hartford,  and  pro 
duced  a  powerful  impression.  On  the  following  day  he  was 
waited  upon  by  a  number  of  prominent  citizens,  and  visited 
several  objects  of  interest  in  the  city,  among  which  were  the 
armories  of  Colt  and  Sharp.  On  the  sixth  of  March,  he  spoke 
at  New  Haven,  at  Meriden  on  the  seventh,  at  Woonsocket, 
Rhode  Island,  on  the  eighth,  at  Norwich,  Connecticut,  on  the 
ninth,  and  at  Bridgeport  on  the  tenth.  His  speaking  was 
always  to  immense  audiences.  Connecticut  was  that  year 
carried  by  the  republicans  by  about  five  hundred  majority, 
against  the  most  powerful  efforts  of  the  democrats — a  fact 
which  was  due  more  to  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Lincoln  than  to 
any  other  cause. 

Some  very  interesting  reminiscences  of  this  trip  were  com 
municated  to  the  public  in  1864,  by  Rev.  John  P.  Gulliver  of 
Norwich,  who  listened  to  his  address  in  that  city.*  On  the 
morning  following  the  speech,  he  met  Mr.  Lincoln  upon  a  train 
of  cars,  and  entered  into  conversation  with  him.  In  speaking 
of  his  speech,  Mr.  Gulliver  remarked  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he 
thought  it  the  most  remarkable  one  he  ever  heard.  "Are  you 
sincere  in  what  you  say?"  inquired  Mr.  Lincoln.  "I  mean 
every  word  of  it,"  replied  the  minister.  "Indeed,  sir,"  he 
continued,  "  I  learned  more  of  the  art  of  public  speaking  last 
evening  than  I  could  from  a  whole  course  of  lectures  on  rhet> 
oric."  Then  Mr.  Lincoln  informed  him  of  "a  most  extraor 
dinary  circumstance"  that  occurred  at  New  Haven  a  few  days 
previously.  A  professor  of  rhetoric  in  Yale  College,  he  had 
*New  York  Independent  of  September  1,  1864. 


214  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

been  told,  came  to  hear  him,  took  notes  of  his  speech,  and 
gave  a  lecture  on  it  to  his  class  the  following  day ;  and,  not 
satisfied  with  that,  followed  him  to  Meriden  the  next  evenino-, 
and  heard  him  again  for  the  same  purpose.  All  this  seemed 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  "very  extraordinary."  He  had  been 
sufficiently  astonished  by  his  success  at  the  West,  but  he  had 
no  expectation  of  any  marked  success  at  the  East,  particularly 
among  literary  and  learned  men.  "Now,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln, 
"  I  should  like  very  much  to  know  what  it  wras  in  my  speech 
which  you  thought  so  remarkable,  and  which  interested  my 
friend  the  professor  so  much?"  Mr.  Gulliver's  answer  was: 
"The  clearness  of  your  statements,  the  unanswerable  style  of 
your  reasoning,  and,  especially,  your  illustrations,  which  were 
romance  and  pathos  and  fun  and  logic  all  welded  together." 

After  Mr.  Gulliver  had  fully  satisfied  his  curiosity  by  a 
further  exposition  of  the  politician's  peculiar  power,  Mr. 
Lincoln  said,  "  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  this.  I  have 
been  wishing  for  a  long  time  to  find  some  one  who  would  make 
this  analysis  for  me.  It  throws  light  on  a  subject  which  has> 
been  dark  to  me.  I  can  understand  very  readily  how  such  a 
power  as  you  have  ascribed  to  me  will  account  for  the  effect: 
which  seems  to  be  produced  by  my  speeches.  I  hope  you 
have  not  been  too  flattering  in  your  estimate.  Certainly  I 
have  had  a  most  wonderful  success  for  a  man  of  my  limited 
education."  Then  Mr.  Gulliver  inquired  into  the  processes 
by  wrhich  he  had  acquired  his  education,  and  was  rewarded 
with  many  interesting  details.  When  they  were  about  to 
part,  the  minister  said :  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  may  I  say  one  thing  to 
you  before  we  separate  ?  "  "  Certainly ;  anything  you  please," 
was  the  response.  "You  have  just  spoken,"  said  Mr.  Gulli 
ver,  "  of  the  tendency  of  political  life  in  Washington  to  debase 
the  moral  convictions  of  our  representatives  there,  by  the  ad 
mixture  of  considerations  of  mere  political  expediency.  You 
have  become,  by  the  controversy  with  Mr.  Douglas,  one  of 
our  leaders  in  this  great  struggle  wTith  slavery,  which  is  un 
doubtedly  the  struggle  of  the  nation  and  the  age.  What  I 
would  like  to  say  is  this,  and  I  say  it  with  a  full  heart :  Be 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  215 

true  to  your  principles,  and  we  will  be  true  to  you,  and  Crod  will 
be  true  to  us  all.19  Mr.  Lincoln,  touched  by  the  earnestness 
of  his  interlocutor,  took  his  hand  in  both  of  his  own,  and, 
with  his  face  full  of  sympathetic  light,  exclaimed:  "I  say 
omen  to  that!  amen  to  that! " 

After  visiting  his  son  at  Harvard  College,  making  many  ac 
quaintances  among  the  prominent  men  of  New  England,  and 
looking  with  curious  eyes  upon  New  England  scenes,  and  ob 
serving  with  his  native  shrewdness  the  characteristics  of  New 
England  habits  and  manners,  he  turned  his  face  homewards, 
spending  a  Sabbath  in  New  York  while  on  the  way,  and 
again  attending  Mr.  Beecher's  church. 

One  thing,  at  least,  he  had  learned  by  this  visit :  that  the 
people  of  the  older  states  judge  a  man  by  the  same  rule  that 
prevails  on  an  Illinois  prairie — by  what  he  is,  and  what  he 
can  do,  and  not  by  the  cloth  he  wears,  the  knowledge  he  has 
acquired,  the  wealth  he  possesses,  or  the  blood  that  flows  in 
his  veins.  He  had  been  accepted  as  an  honest,  fresh,  original 
and  powerful  man;  and  he  went  home  gratified.  Could  he 
have  made  his  visit  longer,  and  been  seen  more  generally  by 
the  people,  it  would  not  have  been  necessary  for  them  to  wait 
so  long  before  knowing  how  great  and  good  a  man  the  provi 
dence  of  God  had  given  to  be  their  ruler. 


CHAPTEE   XV. 

THE  frequent  allusions  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches  to  threats 
of  secession  on  the  part  of  the  South,  in  the  event  of  the 
success  of  the  republican  party,  have  already  shown  the 
reader  that  secession  had  become  a  matter  of  consideration 
and  discussion  among  those  interested  in  the  perpetuation  and 
nationalization  of  slavery.  It  was  evident  that  the  southern 
leaders  were  preparing  the  minds  of  their  people  for  some 
desperate  step,  and  that  many  of  them  desired,  rather  than 
deprecated,  the  election  of  a  republican  president.  Many  of 
them  openly  said  that  they  should  prefer  the  election  of  Mr. 
Seward  or  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  election  of  Mr.  Douglas,  be 
cause  then  they  should  know  exactly  what  they  were  to  meet. 
The  reason  thus  given  was  undoubtedly  a  fraud.  They  found 
themselves  in  desperate  circumstances.  All  their  schemes  for 
the  extension  of  slavery  and  the  reinforcement  of  the  slave 
power  had  miscarried.  Kansas  and  California  were  lost  to 
them.  There  was  no  hope  for  them  in  Nebraska  or  any  of 
the  new  territories.  The  hope  of  acquiring  Cuba  was  gone, 
and  the  filibustering  operations  of  Walker  which  they  had 
patronized  were  failures.  They  knew  of  but  one  remedy — 
that  which  the  great  mischief-maker  of  South  Carolina  had 
pointed  out  to  them  many  years  before,  viz  :  secession.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  they  preferred  secession  to  predominance  in 
the  nation,  but,  basing  their  policy  on  the  doctrine  of  "  state 
rights,"  their  aim  was  to  secede,  and  either  to  insist  on  a  per 
manent  separation,  or  by  secession  to  coerce  the  government 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  217 

into  the  practical  acknowledgment  of  their  claims.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  it  was  the  policy  of  the  shrewdest  of  the  slavery- 
propagandists  so  to  manage  their  party  as  to  secure  the  election 
of  a  republican  president.  Overpowered  in  the  nation,  and 
hopeless  of  the  future,  they  looked  only  for  a  plausible  pretext 
for  precipitating  the  execution  of  their  scheme ;  and  this  could 
only  be  found  in  the  election  of  a  president  professedly  a  foe 
to  the  extension  of  slavery. 

"The  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle"  were  a  band  of  secret 
conspirators  organized  in  the  interest  of  treason.  The  popular 
political  leaders  rose  to  the  highest  degrees  in  this  order,  and 
knew  the  whole  plot,  while  the  masses,  many  of  whom  had 
no  real  sympathy  with  secession,  were  kept  in  the  dark,  ready 
to  be  forced  into  measures  that  were  in  cunning  and  careful 
preparation.  The  Christian  church  of  the  vrhole  South  was 
the  willing  slave  of  this  cabal.  Preachers  proclaimed  the 
divine  right  of  slavery  and  the  doctrines  of  sedition  from  the 
pulpit.  The  press  was  an  obedient  instrument  in  their  hands. 
There  were  traitors  and  plotters  in  the  national  government, 
industriously  preparing  the  way  for  secession,  and  sapping  the 
power  of  the  government  to  prevent  it.  Mr.  Cobb  was 
squandering  the  national  finances.  Mr.  Floyd,  the  secretary 
of  war,  was  filling  all  the  southern  arsenals  with  arms  at  the 
expense  of  the  government,  and  sending  loyal  officers  to  distant 
posts ;  and,  although  a  northern  man  was  at  the  head  of  the 
navy  department,  it  was  subsequently  found,  when  ships  were 
wanted,  that  they  were  very  far  from  where  they  were  wanted. 
These  southern  men,  thus  plotting,  only  waited  for  a  pretext 
for  springing  their  plot  upon  the  people,  and  of  course  were 
not  reluctant  to  make  a  pretext  when  opportunity  offered. 

This  was  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  spring  of  1860,  a 
year  which  was  to  see  a  new  president  elected.  Everybody 
felt  that  a  severe  political  storm  was  ahead,  though  compara 
tively  few,  either  at  the  North  or  the  South,  knew  what  its 
character  would  be.  The  South  blindly  followed  its  leaders, 
without  perfectly  knowing  whither  it  was  to  be  led.  The 
North  had  become  accustomed  to  threats  of  dissolution  of  the 


218  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Union,  and  did  not  believe  that  those  then  rife  would  be  bet 
ter  fulfilled  than  those  which  had  preceded  them.  No  one  at 
the  North,  unless  -it  may  have  been  a  few  sympathetic  politi 
cians,  had  any  faith  in  the  earnestness  of  the  pro-slavery 
schemers.  The  disruption  of  the  government  was  regarded  as 
an  impossibility ;  and  the  Union-loving  Yankee  would  not  be 
lieve  that  there  were  any  who  would  push  their  professed 
enmity  to  any  practical  exhibition. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  scarcely  returned  to  his  home  before  the 
Democratic  National  Convention  assembled  at  Charleston.  This 
convention  occurred  on  the  twenty-third  of  April,  and  col 
lected  to  itself  all  the  plotters  against  the  Union.  That  they 
met  the  northern  members  of  the  democratic  party  with  any 
expectation  to  unite  with  them  in  a  platform  and  the  selection 
of  a  candidate,  is  not  probable.  Mr.  Douglas,  with  his  popu 
lar  sovereignty,  and  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  "  don't  care  " 
policy,  offered  them  the  only  ground  of  Union.  All  saw  this, 
and  all  were  for  or  against  Douglas.  Douglas  was  the  pivot 
of  the  convention.  Everything  turned  on  him.  The  northern 
men  felt  that  nothing  less  than  Douglas,  who  had  fought  the 
Lecompton  fraud  and  the^  administration,  and  had  been  com 
pelled  to  some  concessions  to  freedom  in  order  to  win  his  seat 
in  the  senate,  would  do  for  them,  while  the  South  was  deter 
mined  to  take  no  man  who  was  not  fairly  and  squarely  a  pro- 
slavery  man,  with  a  clean  record,  and  to  subscribe  to  no 
platform  that  did  not  accord  to  them  fully  the  rights  they 
claimed.  The  South  would  have  only  a  "sound  man,"  and 
would  fight  this  time  only  "on  principle."  If  it  could  not 
have  honest  victory,  it  wanted  defeat.  No  "  unfriendly  legis 
lation"  should  exclude  slavery  from  the  territories.  They 
must  have  their  property  protected.  Mr.  Yancey  was  present 
as  the  leader  of  the  "fire-eaters,"  and  could  probably  have 
foretold  the  explosion  of  the  convention.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  he  intended  nothing  else  than  this,  and  the  convention 
did  explode,  and  the  old  democratic  party  that  had  proved 
invincible  on  so  many  battle-fields  was  rent  in  twain.  The 
southern  members,  by  a  large  majority,  withdrew  and  formed 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  219 

a  "Constitutional  Convention."  The  regular  convention  re 
mained  in  session,  and  after  fifty-seven  unsuccessful  ballotings, 
in  which  Mr.  Douglas  came  near  a  nomination,  they  gave  it 
up,  and  adjourned  to  meet  in  Baltimore  on  the  eighteenth  day 
of  June,  or  two  days  after  the  appointed  date  of  the  Republi 
can  Convention  at  Chicago.  The  Constitutional  Convention 
transacted  no  important  business,  and  made  no  nomination,  but 
adjourned  to  meet  in  Richmond  on  the  second  Monday  in  June. 

The  Charleston  people  were  delighted  with  the  results  of 
the  quarrel.  The  ladies,  only  a  dozen  of  whom  had  been  in 
attendance  upon  the  regular  convention,  turned  out  and  filled 
the  hall  of  the  seceders.  All  the  smiles  of  all  the  beauty  of 
Charleston  were  bestowed  upon  Mr.  Yancey  and  his  followers. 
They  undoubtedly  regarded  this  disruption  of  the  party  as 
insuring  the  pretext  for  disunion  for  which  they  so  ardently 
wished. 

The  democratic  host,  as  they  retired  in  broken  columns 
from  Charleston,  were  jostled  on  the  road  by  the  members  of 
another  convention,  on  their  way  to  Baltimore — the  "National 
Constitutional  Union  Convention" — made  up  largely  of  old 
whigs  who  still  dreamed  that  the  party  of  their  early  love 
was  in  existence — that  it  was  not  dead,  but  sleeping.  They 
met  on  the  ninth  of  May — delegates  from  ten  free  states  and 
eleven  slave  states.  There  is  this  to  be  said  of  this  body  of 
men — that  they  were  in  the  main  really  anxious  to  save  the 
Union,  and  that  they  had  a  juster  appreciation  of  the  dangers 
of  the  Union  than  the  republicans,  who  were  fond  of  ridicul 
ing  their  fears.  They  passed  a  "conservative"  resolution, 
declaring  that  they  had  no  principles  except  "The  Constitu 
tion  of  the  country,  the  Union  of  the  states,  and  the  enforce 
ment  of  the  laws."  The  convention  nominated  John  Bell 
of  Tennessee  for  president,  and  Edward  Everett  of  Massa 
chusetts  for  vice-president,  the  former  of  whom,  when  seces 
sion  came,  went  over  to  the  disunionists,  and  the  latter  of 
whom  devoted  all  his  great  influence  and  powers  to  the  main 
tenance  of  the  government,  becoming  at  last  a  member  of  the 
republican  party  and  the  recipient  of  its  honors. 


220  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Before  entering  upon  an  account  of  the  Chicago  Conven 
tion,  it  will  be  best  to  state,  in  brief,  the  result  of  the  demo 
cratic  split  at  Charleston.  The  Richmond  Convention  met 
and  adjourned  to  await  the  doings  of  the  Baltimore  Conven 
tion,  the  members  generally  going  to  Baltimore.  There  they 
joined  in  an  independent  convention,  making  all  the  mischief 
possible,  and  nominating  for  president  John  C.  Breckinridge, 
then  vice-president  of,  the  United  States,  and  since  a  Major 
General  in  the  rebel  afmy.  The  regular  convention  nomina 
ted  Mr.  Douglas,  though  he  had  begged  them  to  sacrifice  him 
rather  than  the  party.  The  party,  however,  was  already  sac 
rificed  ;  and  he  had  had  no  small  hand  in  the  slaughter.  The 
antagonism  between  the  southern  and  northern  sections  of 
the  democracy  was  irreconcilable.  It  was  impossible  for  the 
two  to  agree  upon  a  platform  or  a  man  who  would  carry 
either  section  of  the  country.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  his  joke  and 
his  ''little  story"  over  the  disruption  of  the  democracy.  He 
once  knew,  he  said,  a  sound  churchman  of  the  name  of  Brown, 
who  was  the  member  of  a  very  sober  and  pious  committee 
having  in  charge  the  erection  of  a  bridge  over  a  dangerous 
and  rapid  river.  Several  architects  failed,  and  at  last  Brown 
said  he  had  a  friend  named  Jones  who  had  built  several 
bridges,  and  could  undoubtedly  build  that  one.  So  Mr.  Jones 
was  called  in.  "Can  you  build  this  bridge?"  inquired  the 
committee.  "Yes,"  replied  Jones,  "or  any  other.  I  could 
build  a  bridge  to  h — 1  if  necessary."  The  committee  were 
shocked,  and  Brown  felt  called  upon  to  defend  his  friend. 
44 1  know  Jones  so  well,"  said  he,  "and  he  is  so  honest  a  man, 
and  so  good  an  architect,  that  if  he  states  soberly  and  pos 
itively  that  he  can  build  a  bridge  to — to — the  infernal  regions, 
why,  I  believe  it;  but  I  feel  bound  to  say  that  I  have  my 
doubts  about  the  abutment  on  the  other  side."  "So,"  said 
Mr.  Lincoln,  "  when  politicians  told  me  that  the  northern  and 
southern  wings  of  the  democracy  could  be  harmonized,  why, 
I  believed  them,  of  course,  but  I  always  had  my  doubts 
about  the  abutment  on  the  other  side."  r;; , 

Though  the  result  of  the  Baltimore  Convention  was  un- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  221 

known  at  Chicago,  it  was  foreseen,  and  it  was  believed  that 
victory  would  come  to  the  republican  party  with  any  respect 
able  nominee.  When  the  friends  of  Douglas  left  Baltimore, 
they  left  it  with  none  but  bitter  feelings  for  those  who  had 
destroyed  their  party,  and  brought  certain  defeat  to  the  man 
to  whom  they  were  strongly  devoted.  They  felt  that  Mr. 
Douglas  had  deserved  better  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the 
South  than  he  had  received,  and  saw,  in  the  disruption  of 
their  party,  the  defeat  of  all  their  hopes. 

The  Republican  Convention  at  Chicago  assembled  on  the 
sixteenth  of  June.  There  was  an  immense  crowd  in  attend 
ance,  casting  into  the  shade  entirely  the  assemblages  at 
Charleston  and  Baltimore.  Every  hotel  was  crammed  from 
basement  to  attic,  even  in  that  city  of  multitudinous  and  ca 
pacious  hotels.  It  was  calculated  that  fifteen  hundred  persons 
slept  in  the  Tremont  House  alone.  A  huge  building  was 
erected  for  the  sessions  of  the  convention,  which  was  called 
"The  Wigwam;"  and  even  this  could  not  contain  more  than 
a  fraction  of  the  twenty-five  thousand  strangers  who  had 
assembled  in  the  city,  as  delegates  and  interested  observers. 

Edward  Bates,  Judge  McLean,  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  N.  P. 
Banks,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Simon  Cameron,  and  William  H. 
Seward,  all  had  their  partisans  among  outsiders  and  insiders; 
but  it  became  evident  very  early  that  the  contest  was  really 
between  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  chiefs  of  the 
party  were  all  present,  excepting,  perhaps,  those  who  imagined 
that  they  might  possibly  be  made  the  recipients  of  the  conven 
tion's  favors. 

Hon.  George  Ashmun  of  Massachusetts  was  elected  to 
preside  over  the  deliberations  of  the  occasion.  Canvassing, 
talking,  prophesying,  betting,  declaiming,  were  actively  in 
progress  everywhere.  On  the  morning  of  the  seventeenth, 
Mr.  Seward's  friends  made  a  demonstration  in  his  favor, 
in  the  form  of  a  procession,  following  a  band  of  music  and 
wearing  badges.  As  they  passed  the  Tremont  House,  they 
were  greeted  with  tremendous  cheers,  the  band  playing  "  O, 
isn't  he  a  darling?"  Antagonisms  were  developed  in  every 


222  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

quarter.  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey  and  Indiana  declared 
that  if  Mr.  Seward  should  be  nominated  they  could  do  noth 
ing  ;  Douglas  would  beat  them  ten  to  one.  Illinois,  devoted 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  joined  in  the  cry,  but  the  New  Yorkers 
scouted  the  idea  that  Mr.  Seward  could  not  sweep  with  vic 
tory  every  northern  state.  The  Lincoln  men  were  quite  as  busy 
as  the  friends  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  less  noisy.  Mr.  Greeley  tel 
egraphed  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  on  the  evening  of  the 
seventeenth:  "My  conclusion,  from  all  that  I  can  gather,  is, 
that  the  opposition  to  Governor  Seward  cannot  concentrate  on 
any  candidate,  and  that  he  will  be  nominated;"  and  this,  it 
must  be  remembered,  was  not  in  accordance  with  Mr.  Greeley's 
wishes. 

The  platform  upon  which  the  party  proposed  to  conduct 
the  campaign  was  adopted  on  the  second  day.  The  action 
upon  this  showed  that  the  party  had  not  quite  come  to  the 
standard  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  moderate  as  he  had  been.  Hon. 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  one  of  the  old  enemies  of  slavery  and 
the  slave  power,  wished  to  introduce  into  the  platform  that 
part  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  asserts,  as 
self-evident  truths,  "that  all  men  are  endowed  by  their  Cre 
ator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  those  of 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  and  that  govern 
ments  are  instituted  among  men  to  secure  the  enjoyment  of 
these  rights ;  but  objections  were  made.  The  old  man  walked 
grieved  and  disgusted  out  of  the  wigwam,  amid  the  protesta 
tions  of  the  crowd.  Mr.  George  "W.  Curtis,  a  New  York 
delegate,  made  an  appeal  to  the  convention  that  was  irresisti 
ble,  and  the  declaration  went  in,  and  all  felt  the  stronger  and 
better  for  it.  The  utterances  of  Mr.  Lincoln  have  already 
given  us  the  substance  of  this  platform.  It  contravened  no 
right  of  slavery  in  the  states,  under  the  Constitution,  de 
nounced  the  subserviency  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  administration 
to  a  sectional  interest  and  the  dogma  that  the  Constitution 
carried  slavery  into  the  territories  and  protected  it  there,  de 
clared  that  the  normal  condition  of  all  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  is  that  of  freedom,  and  that  a  sound  policy 


LIFE  OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  223 

requires  a  protective  tariff,  &c.,  &c.  It  was  the  platform  of 
the  old  whig  party,  repeated  in  most  particulars,  except  that, 
in  the  matter  of  slavery,  it  introduced,  not  widely  modified, 
the  old  platform  of  the  "free  soilers."  The  platform  was 
adopted  amid  demonstrations  of  the  wildest  enthusiasm.  An 
eye  witness  of  the  scene*  says :  "  all  the  thousands  of  men  in 
that  enormous  wigwam  commenced  swinging  their  hats,  and 
cheering  with  intense  enthusiasm ;  and  the  other  thousands  of 
ladies  waved  their  handkerchiefs  and  clapped  their  hands. 
The  roar  that  went  up  from  that  mass  of  ten  thousand  human 
beings  is  indescribable.  Such  a  spectacle  as  was  presented 
for  some  minutes  has  never  before  been  witnessed  at  a  conven 
tion.  A  herd  of  buffaloes  or  lions  could  not  have  made  a 
more  tremendous  roaring." 

The  Seward  men  still  carried  a  confident  air  on  the  third 
day.  They  had  reason  to  do  so.  Their  candidate  was  in 
many  respects  the  greatest  man  in  the  party.  He  was  a 
statesman  of  acknowledged  eminence,  and  had  been  for  many 
years  the  leading  representative  of  the  principles  upon  which 
the  republican  party  stood.  They  were  strong,  too,  in  the 
convention ;  and  they  were  sure  to  secure  upon  the  first  ballot 
more  votes  for  their  candidate  than  could  be  summoned  to  the 
support  of  any  other  man. 

On  the  assembling  of  the  convention,  everybody  was  anx 
ious  to  get  at  the  decisive  work,  and,  as  a  preliminary,  the 
various  candidates  in  the  field  were  formally  nominated  by 
their  friends.  Mr.  Evarts  of  New  York  nominated  Mr.  Sew 
ard,  and  Mr.  Judd  of  Illinois  named  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Afterwards,  Mr.  Dayton  of  New  Jersey,  Mr.  Cameron  of 
Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Chase  of  Ohio,  Edward  Bates  of  Missouri, 
and  John  McLean  of  Ohio,  were  formally  nominated ;  but  no 
enthusiasm  was  awakened  by  the  mention  of  any  names  except 
those  of  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Lincoln.  Caleb  B.  Smith  of 
Indiana  seconded  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  did  also 
Mr.  Delano  of  Ohio,  while  Carl  Schurz  of  Wisconsin  and 

*M.  Halstead,  author  of  "Caucuses  of  1860."  Columbus:  Follett, 
Foster  &  Co. 


224  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Blair  of  Michigan  seconded  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Sew- 
ard.  It  was  certain  that  one  of  these  two  men  would  be  nom 
inated.  On  every  pronunciation  of  their  names,  their  respect 
ive  partisans  raised  their  shouts,  vieing  with  each  other  in  the 
strength  of  their  applause.  The  excitement  of  this  mass  of 
men  at  that  time  cannot  be  measured  by  those  not  there,  or  by 
men  in  their  sober  senses. 

The  ballot  came.  Maine  gave  nearly  half  her  vote  for 
Lincoln ;  New  Hampshire,  seven  of  her  ten  for  Lincoln.  Mas 
sachusetts  was  divided.  New  York  voted  solid  for  Mr.  Sew- 
ard,  giving  him  her  seventy  votes.  Virginia,  which  was  ex 
pected  also  to  vote  solid  for  Mr.  Seward,  gave  fourteen  of 
her  twenty-two  votes  for  Lincoln.  Indiana  gave  her  twenty- 
six  votes  for  Lincoln  without  a  break.  Thus  the  ballotino1 

o 

went  on,  amid  the  most  intense  excitement,  until  the  whole 
number  of  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  votes  was  cast.  It  was 
necessary  to  a  choice  that  one  candidate  should  have  two  hund 
red  and  thirty-three.  William  H.  Seward  had  one  hundred 
and  seventy-three  and  a  half,  Abraham  Lincoln  one  hund 
red  and  two,  Edward  Bates  forty-eight,  Simon  Cameron  fifty 
and  a  half,  Salmon  P.  Chase  forty-nine.  The  remaining  forty- 
two  votes  were  divided  among  John  McLean,  Benjamin  F. 
Wade,  William  L.  Dayton,  John  M.  Reed,  Jacob  Collamer, 
Charles  Sumner  and  John  C.  Fremont, — Reed,  Sumner  and 
Fremont  having  one  each. 

On  the  second  ballot,  the  first  gain  for  Lincoln  was  from 
New  Hampshire.  Then  Yermont  followed  with  her  vote, 
which  she  had  previously  given  to  her  senator,  Mr.  Collamer, 
as  a  compliment.  Pennsylvania  came  next  to  his  support, 
with  the  votes  she  had  given  to  Cameron.  On  the  whole 
ballot,  he  gained  seventy-nine  votes,  and  received  one  hund 
red  and  eighty-one ;  while  Mr.  Seward  received  one  hundred 
and  eighty-four  and  a  half  votes,  having  gained  eleven.  The 
announcement  of  the  votes  given  to  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  received  by  deafening  applause  by  their  respect 
ive  partisans.  Then  came  the  third  ballot.  All  felt  that  it 
was  likely  to  be  the  decisive  one,  and  the  friends  of  Mr.  Seward 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  225 

trembled  for  the  result.  Hundreds  of  pencils  were  in  opera 
tion,  and  before  the  result  was  announced  it  was  whispered 
through  the  immense  and  excited  mass  of  people  that  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  had  received  two  hundred  and  thirty-one  and  a 
half  votes,  only  lacking  one  vote  and  a  half  of  an  election. 
Mr.  Cartter  of  Ohio  was  up  in  an  instant,  to  announce  the 
change  of  four  votes  of  Ohio  from  Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 
That  finished  the  work.  The  excitement  had  culminated. 
After  a  moment's  pause,  like  the  sudden  and  breathless  still 
ness  that  precedes  the  hurricane,  the  storm  of  wild,  uncon 
trollable  and  almost  insane  enthusiasm  descended.  The  scene 
surpassed  description.  During  all  the  ballotings,  a  man  had 
been  standing  upon  the  roof,  communicating  the  results  to  the 
outsiders,  who,  in  surging  masses,  far  outnumbered  those  whi> 
were  packed  into  the  wigwam.  To  this  man  one  of  the  sec 
retaries  shouted:  "Fire  the  salute!  Abe  Lincoln  is  nomina 
ted!  "  Then,  as  the  cheering  inside  died  away,  the  roar  began 
on  the  outside,  and  swelled  up  from  the  excited  masses  like 
the  noise  of  many  waters.  This  the  insiders  heard,  and  to  it 
they  replied.  Thus  deep  called  to  deep  with  such  a  frenzy 
of  sympathetic  enthusiasm  that  even  the  thundering  salute 
of  cannon  was  unheard  by  many  upon  the  platform. 

When  the  multitudes  became  too  tired  to  cheer  more,  the 
business  of  the  convention  proceeded.  Half  a  dozen  men 
were  on  their  feet  announcing  the  change  of  votes  of  their 
states,  swelling  Mr.  Lincoln's  majority.  Missouri,  Iowa, 
Kentucky,  Minnesota,  Virginia,  California,  Texas,-  District  of 
Columbia,  Kansas,  Nebraska  and  Oregon  insisted  on  casting 
unanimous  votes  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  before  the  vote  was  declared. 
While  these  changes  were  going  on,  a  photograph  of  the  nomi 
nee  was  brought  in  and  exhibited  to  the  convention.  When 
the  vote  was  declared,  Mr.  Evarts,  on  behalf  of  the  Xew 
York  delegation,  expressed  his  grief  that  Mr.  Seward  had 
not  been  nominated,  and  then  moved  that  the  nomination  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  made  unanimous.  John  A.  Andrew 
of  Massachusetts  and  Carl  Schurz  of  Wisconsin  seconded  the 
motion,  and  it  was  carried.  Before  the  nomination  of  a  vice- 
15 


226  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

president,  the  convention  adjourned  *for  dinner.  It  is  re 
ported  that  such  had  been  the  excitement  during  the  morning 
session  that  men  \vho  never  tasted  intoxicating  liquors  stag 
gered  like  drunken  men,  on  coming  into  the  open  air.  The 
nervous  tension  had  been  so  great  that,  when  it  subsided,  they 
were  as  flaccid  and  feeble  as  if  they  had  but  recently  risen 
from  a  fever. 

The  excitement  in  the  city  only  began  as  it  subsided  in  the 
convention.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  favorite  of  Chicago  and  of 
Illinois — he  was  the  people's  idol.  Men  shouted  and  sang, 
and  did  all  sorts  of  foolish  things  in  the  incontinence  of  their 
joy.  After  dinner  the  convention  met  again,  and  for  the  last 
time.  The  simple  business  was  the  completion  of  the  ticket 
by  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  vice-president ;  and  the 
result  was  the  selection  of  Hannibal  Hamlin  of  Maine. 

The  defeat  of  Mr.  Seward  was  a  sad  blow  to  his  friends. 
They  had  presented  to  the  convention  one  of  the  prominent 
statesmen  of  the  nation ;  and  he  had  undoubtedly  been  slaugh 
tered  to  satisfy  the  clamor  for  "availability."  The  country 
at  large  did  not  know  Mr.  Lincoln  in  any  capacity  except 
that  of  a  political  debater ;  and  many  sections  had  no  familiar 
ity  with  his  reputation,  even  in  this  character.  Mr.  Seward, 
on  the  contrary,  had  been  in  public  life  for  thirty  years ;  and 
his  name  and  fame  were  as  common  and  as  well  established 
in  the  regard  ,of  the  nation,  as  the  name  and  fame  of  Henry 
Clay  and  Daniel  Webster  had  been.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
accomplishments,  of  wide  experience,  of  large  influence  and 
surpassing  ability — recognized  as  such  abroad  as  well  as  at 
home.  Their  disappointment  is  not  to  be  wrondered  at,  or 
blamed.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  been  proved.  His  capacity 
for  public  affairs  had  yet  to  be  demonstrated;  and  he  had 
been  nominated  over  the  head  of  Mr.  Seward  partly  for  this 
reason — the  reason  that  he  was  a  new  man,  and  had  no  public 
record.  If  events  have  proved  that  the  choice  between  these 
two  men  was  a  fortunate  one,  they  can  hardly  have  proved  that 
it  was  a  wise  one — that  it  was  the  result  of  an  intelligent  and 
honest  choice  between  the  two  men.  It  is  pleasant  to  remem- 

*ff 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  227 

ber  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  when  elected  to  the  presidency,  called 
to  the  first  place  in  his  cabinet  the  man  whom  the  convention 
had  set  aside,  and  that  the  country  had  the  advantage  of  his 
wise  counsels  throughout  the  darkest  period  and  most  difficult 
passage  of  its  history. 

As  has  been  stated,  the  city  of  Chicago  was  wild  with  de 
light.  One  hundred  guns  were  fired  from  the  top  of  the 
Tremont  House.  Decorated  and  illuminated  rails  were  around 
the  newspaper  offices.  All  the  bars  and  drinking  halls  were 
Crowded  with  men  who  were  either  worn  out  with  excitement 
or  mad  with  delight.  From  Chicago  the  news  spread  over 
tjie  country,  and  the  cannon's  throat  responded  to  the  click 
of  the  telegraph  from  Maine  to  the  Mississippi.  The  out 
going  trains  that  night  found  bonfires  blazing  at  every  village, 
and  excited  crowds  assembled  to  cheer  the  retiring  delegates, 
most  of  whom  were  either  too  weak  or  too  hoarse  to  respond. 

In  the  little  city  of  Springfield,  in  the  heart  of  Illinois,  two 
hundred  miles  from  where  those  exciting  events  were  in  prog 
ress,  sat  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  close  and  constant  telegraphic 
communication  with  his  friends  in  Chicago.  He  was  apprised 
of  the  results  of  every  ballot,  and,  with  his  home  friends,  sat  in 
the  Journal  office  receiving  and  commenting  upon  the  dis 
patches.  It  was  one  of  the  decisive  moments  of  his  life — a 
moment  on  which  hung  his  fate  as  a  public  man — his  place  in 
history.  He  fully  appreciated  the  momentous  results  of  the 
convention  to  himself  and  the  nation,  and  foresaw  the  nature 
of  the  great  struggle  which  his  nomination  and  election  would 
inaugurate.  A  moment,  and  he  knew  that  he  would  either 
become  the  central  man  of  a  nation,  or  a  cast-off  politician 
whose  ambition  for  the  nation's  highest  honors  would  be  for" 
ever  blasted.  At  last,  in  the  midst  of  intense  and  painful 
excitement,  a  messenger  from  the  telegraph  office  entered  with 
the  decisive  dispatch  in  his  hand.  Without  handing  it  to  any 
one,  he  took  his  way  solemnly  to  the  side  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 
said :  "  the  convention  has  made  a  nomination,  and  Mr.  Sew- 

ard  is the  second  man  on  the  list."  Then  he  jumped  upon 

the  editorial  table  and  shouted,  "gentlemen,  I  propose  three 


228  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

cheers  for  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  next  President  of  the  United 
States;"  and  the  call  was  boisterously  responded  to.  He  then 
handed  the  dispatch  to  Mr.  Lincoln  who  read  in  silence,  and 
then  aloud,  its  contents.  After  the  excitement  had  in  a  meas 
ure  passed  away  from  the  little  assembly,  Mr.  Lincoln  rose, 
and  remarking  that  there  was  "a  little  woman"  on  Eighth 
street  who  had  some  interest  in  the  matter,  pocketed  the  tele 
gram  and  walked  home. 

As  soon  as  the  news  reached  Springfield,  the  citizens  who 
had  a  personal  affection  for  Mr.  Lincoln  which  amounted 
almost  to  idolatry,  responded  with  a  hundred  guns,  and  during 
the  afternoon  thronged  his  house  to  tender  their  congratula 
tions  and  express  their  joy.  In  the  evening,  the  State  House 
was  thrown  open,  and  a  most  enthusiastic  meeting  held  by  the 
republicans.  At  its  close,  they  marched  in  a  body  to  the 
Lincoln  mansion,  and  called  for  the  nominee.  Mr.  Lincoln 
appeared,  and  after  a  brief,  modest  and  hearty  speech,  invited 
as  many  as  could  get  into  the  house  to  enter,  the  crowd  re 
sponding  that  after  the  fourth  of  March  they  would  give  him 
a  larger  house.  The  people  did  not  retire  until  a  late  hour, 
and  then  moved  off  reluctantly,  leaving  the  excited  household 
to  their  rest. 

On  the  following  day,  which  was  Saturday,  Mr.  Ashmun, 
the  president  of  the  convention,  at  the  head  of  a  committee, 
visited  Springfield  to  apprise  Mr.  Lincoln  officially  of  his 
nomination.  In  order  that  the  ceremony  might  be  smoothly 
performed,  tlie  committee  had  an  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
before  the  hour  appointed  for  the  formal  call.  They  found  him 
at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  treat  a  present  he  had  just  received 
at  the  hands  of  some  of  his  considerate  Springfield  friends. 
Knowing  Mr.  Lincoln's  temperate  or  rather  abstinent  habits, 
and  laboring  under  the  impression  that  the  visitors  from  Chi 
cago  would  have  wants  beyond  the  power  of  cold  water  to 
satisfy,  these  friends  had  sent  in  sundry  hampers  of  wines  and 
liquors.  These  strange  fluids  troubled  Mr.  Lincoln ;  and  he 
frankly  confessed  as  much  to  the  members  of  the  committee. 
The  chairman  at  once  advised  him  to  return  the  gift,  and  to 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  229 

offer  no  stimulants  to  his  guests,  as  many  would  be  present 
besides  the  committee.  Thus  relieved,  he  made  ready  for  the 
reception  of  the  company,  according  to  his  own  ideas  of  hos 
pitality.  The  evening  came,  and  with  it  Mr.  Ashmun  and  the 
committee  and  many  others.  Mr.  Ashmun  on  being  presented 
said : 

"  I  have,  sir,  the  honor,  on  behalf  of  the  gentlemen  who  are  present — 
a  committee  appointed  by  the  republican  convention  recently  assembled 
at  Chicago — to  discharge  a  most  pleasant  duty.  We  have  come,  sir, 
under  a  vote  of  instructions  to  that  committee,  to  notify  you  that  you 
have  been  selected  by  the  convention  of  the  republicans  at  Chicago 
for  President  of  the  United  States.  They  instruct  us,  sir,  to  notify  you 
of  that  selection ;  and  that  committee  deem  it  not. only  respectful  to 
yourself,  but  appropriate  to  the  important  matter  which  they  have  in 
hand,  that  they  should  come  in  person,  and  present  to  you  the  authentic 
evidence  of  the  action  of  that  convention ;  and,  sir,  without  any  phrase 
which  shall  either  be  personally  plauditory  to  yourself,  or  which  shall 
have  any  reference  to  the  principles  involved  in  the  questions  which  are 
connected  with  your  nomination,  I  desire  to  present  to  you  the  letter 
which  has  been  prepared,  and  which  informs  you  of  your  nomination, 
and  with  it  the  platform,  resolutions  and  sentiments  which  the  conven 
tion  adopted.  Sir,  at  your  convenience,  we  shall  be  glad  to  receive  from 
you  such  a  response  as  it  may  be  your  pleasure  to  give  us." 

Mr.  Lincoln  listened  to  the  address  with  sad  gravity.  There 
was  in  his  heart  no  exultation — no  elation — only  the  pressure  of 
a  new  and  great  responsibility.  He  paused  thoughtfully  for 
a  moment,  and  then  replied : 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee :  I  tender  to  you, 
and  through  you  to  the  republican  national  convention,  and  all  the 
people  represented  in  it,  my  profoundest  thanks  for  the  high  honor  done, 
me,  which  you  now  formally  announce.  Deeply  and  even  painfully 
sensible  of  the  great  responsibility  which  is  inseparable  from  this  high 
honor — a  responsibility  which  I  could  almost  wish  had  fallen  upon  some 
one  of  the  far  more  eminent  and  experienced  statesmen  whose  distin 
guished  names  were  before  the  convention — I  shall,  by  your  leave,  con 
sider  more  fully  the  resolutions  of  the  convention  denominated  the 
platform,  and,  without  any  unnecessary  or  unreasonable  delay,  respond 
to  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  writing,  not  doubting  that  the  platform  will 
be  found  satisfactory,  and  the  nomination  gratefully  accepted.  And 
now  I  will  no  longer  defer  the  pleasure  of  taking  you,  and  each  of  you, 
by  the  hand." 


230  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Judge  Kelly  of  Pennsylvania,  one  of  the  committee,  and 
a  very  tall  man,  looked  at  Mr.  Lincoln,  up  and  down,  before 
it  came  his  turn  to  take  his  hand,  a  scrutiny  that  had  not 
escaped  Mr.  Lincoln's  quick  eye.  So,  when  he  took  the  hand 
of  the  Judge,  he  inquired:  "what  is  your  hight?"  "six  feet 
three,"  replied  the  Judge.  "What  is  yours,  Mr.  Lincoln?" 
"Six  feet  four,"  responded  Mr.  Lincoln.  "Then,  sir,"  said 
the  Judge,  "Pennsylvania  bows  to  Illinois.  My  dear  man," 
he  continued,  "for  years  my  heart  has  been  aching  for  a  presi 
dent  that  I  could  look  up  to  ;  and  I  've  found  him  at  last,  in 
the  land  where  we  thought  there  were  none  but  little  giants." 

The  evening  passed  quickly  away,  and  the  committee  re 
tired  with  a  very  pleasant  impression  of  the  man  in  whose 
hands  they  had  placed  the  standard  of  the  party  for  a  great 
and  decisive  campaign.  Mr.  Ashmun  met  the  nominee  as  an 
old  friend,  with  whom  he  had  acted  in  Congress,  when  both 
were  members  of  the  old  whig  party ;  and  the  interview  be 
tween  them  was  one  of  peculiar  interest.  It  is  a  strange 
coincidence  that  the  man  who  received  Mr.  Lincoln's  first 
spoken  and  written  utterance  as  the  standard  bearer  of  the 
republican  party,  received  the  last  word  he  ever  wrote  as 
President  of  the  United  States. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  June,  which  occurred  on  the  fol 
lowing  week,  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  to  the  letter  which  Mr. 
Ashmun  presented  him  as  follows : 

"Sir:  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the  convention  over 
•which  you  presided,  of  which  I  am  formally  apprised  in  a  letter  of  your 
self  and  others,  acting  as  a  committee  of  the  convention  for  that  purpose. 
The  declaration  of  principles  and  sentiments  which  accompanies  your 
letter  meets  my  approval,  and  it  shall  be  my  care  not  to  violate  it,  or 
disregard  it  in  any  part.  Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence, 
and  with  due  regard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were  repre 
sented  in  the  convention,  to  the  rights  of  all  the  states  and  territories 
and  people  of  the  nation,  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution  and 
the  perpetual  union,  harmony  and  prosperity  of  all,  I  am  most  happy  to 
co-operate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  principles  declared  by  the 
convention.  Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 

"ABRAHAM   LlXCOLN. 

"Hon.  GEORGE  ASIIMUN." 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  231 

Thus  was  Abraham  Lincoln  placed  before  the  nation  as  a 
candidate  for  the  highest  honor  in  its  power  to  bestow.  It 
had  been  a  long  and  tedious  passage  to  this  point  in  his  history. 
He  was  in  the  fifty-second  year  of  his  age.  He  had  spent 
half  of  his  years  in  what  was  literally  a  wilderness.  Born  in 
the  humblest  and  remotest  obscurity,  subjected  to  the  rudest 
toil  in  the  meanest  offices,  gathering  his  acquisitions  from  the 
scantiest  sources,  achieving  the  development  of  his  powers  by 
means  of  his  own  institution,  he  had,  with  none  of  the  tricks 
of  the  demagogue,  with  none  of  the  aids  of  wealth  and  social 
influence,  with  none  of  the  opportunities  for  exhibiting  his 
powers  which  high  official  position  bestows,  against  all  the 
combinations  of  genius  and  eminence  and  interest,  raised  him 
self  by  force  of  manly  excellence  of  heart  and  brain  into  na 
tional  recognition,  and  had  become  the  focal  center  of  the 
affectionate  interest  and  curious  inquisition  of  thirty  millions 
of  people  at  home,  and  of  multitudes  throughout  the  civilized 
world. 


CHAPTEK   XVI. 

AND  now  began  a  new  life,  so  unlike  anything  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  hitherto  experienced  that  he  found  himself  alto* 
gether  afloat  as  to  the  proprieties  of  his  position*  His  nomi 
nation  had  not  elevated  or  elated  him ;  and  he  did  not  see  why 
it  should  change  his  manners  or  his  bearing  toward  anybody. 
He  had  been  diminished  in  his  own  estimation — in  some  re 
spects  humbled  and  oppressed — by  the  great  responsibilities 
placed  upon  him,  rather  than  made  important  and  great.  He 
was  the  people's  instrument,  the  people's  servant,  the  people's 
creation.  He  could  put  on  none  of  the  airs  of  eminence ;  he 
could  place  no  bars  between  himself  and  those  who  had  hon 
ored  him.  None  of  his  old  heartiness  and  simplicity  left  him. 
Men  who  entered  his  house  impressed  with  a  sense  of  his  new 
dignities,  found  him  the  same  honest,  affectionate,  true-hearted 
and  simple-minded  Abraham  Lincoln  that  he  had  always  been* 
He  answered  his  own  bell,  accompanied  his  visitors  to  the  door 
when  they  retired,  and  felt  all  that  interfered  with  his  old 
homely  and  hearty  habits  of  hospitality  as  a  burden — almost 
an  impertinence. 

From  this  moment  to  the  moment  of  his  death  he  knew 
nothing  of  leisure.  He  was  astonished  to  find  how  many 
friends  he  had.  They  thronged  his  house  from  every  quarter 
of  the  country.  Probably  no  candidate  for  presidential  hon 
ors  was  ever  so  beset  by  place-seekers  and  lion-hunters  as  was " 
Mr.  Lincoln ;  for  it  is  rare  indeed  that  any  man  is  nominated 
for  the  presidency  with  the  same  moral  certainty  of  an  elec- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  233 

tion  which  attached  to  his  prospects/^*  It  was  almost  univer 
sally  believed,  both  at  the  North  and  the  South,  that  he  would 
be  elected;  and  he  was  treated  like  a  man  who  already  had 
the  reins  of  power  in  his  hands. 

Some  of  his  friends  who  had  witnessed  his  laborious  way 
of  receiving  and  dismissing  his  guests  and  visitors  interposed 
with  "  Thomas,"  a  colored  servant  who  became  very  useful  to 
him ;  but  it  was  very  hard  and  very  unnatural  for  him  to  yield 
to  another,  and  he  a  servant,  the  ministry  of  the  courtesies 
which  it  was  so  much  his  delight  to  render;  and  he  not  un- 
frequently  broke  over  the  rules  which  his  considerate  advisers 
undertook  to  impose  upon  him.  One  thing  was  remarkable 
in  these  receptions — his  attention  to  the  humble  and  the  poor* 
No  poor,  humble,  scared  man  ever  came  into  his  house  toward 
whom  his  heart  did  not  at  once  go  out  with  a  gush  of  noble 
sympathy.  To  these  he  was  always  particularly  attentive, 
and  they  were  placed  at  ease  at  once.  He  took  pains  to  show 
them  that  no  change  of  circumstances  could  make  him  forget 
his  early  condition,  or  alienate  his  heart  from  those  with  whom 
he  bad  shared  the  hardships  and  humilities  of  obscurity  and 
poverty. 

The  interruption  of  family  privacy  and  comfort  by  the  con 
stant  throng  of  visitors  at  last  became  intolerable,  and  it  was 
determined  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  hold  his  receptions  else 
where.  Accordingly  the  Executive  Chamber,  a  large  fine  room 
in  the  State  House,  was  set  apart  for  him;  and  in  this  room  he 
met  the  public  until,  after  his  election,  he  departed  for  Wash 
ington.  Here  he  met  the  millionaire  arid  the  menial,  the 
priest  and  the  politician,  men,  women  and  children,  old  friends 
and  new  friends,  those  who  called  for  love  and  those  who 
sought  for  office.  From  morning  until  night  this  was  his  bus 
iness;  and  he  performed  it  with  conscientious  care  and  the 
most  unwearying*  patience. 

As  illustrative  of  the  nature  of  many  of  his  calls,  a  brace 
of  incidents  may  be  recorded  as  they  were  related  to  the  writer 
by  an  eye-witness.  Mr.  Lincoln  being  seated  in  conversation 
with  a  gentleman  one  day,  two  raw,  plainly  dressed  young 


234  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

"  Suckers  "  entered  the  room,  and  bashfully  lingered  near  the 
door.  As  soon  as  he  observed  them,  and  apprehended  their 
embarrassment,  he  rose  and  walked  to  them,  saying,  "How 
do  you  do,  my  good  fellows  ?  What  can  I  do  for  you  ?  Will 
you  sit  down?'*  The  spokesman  of  the  pair,  the  shorter  of 
the  two,  declined  to  sit,  and  explained  the  object  of  the  call 
thus :  he  had  had  a  talk  about  the  relative  hight  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coin  and  his  companion,  and  had  asserted  his  belief  that  they 
were  of  exactly  the  same  hight.  He  had  come  in  to  verify 
his  judgment.  Mr.  Lincoln  smiled,  went  and  got  his  cane, 
and,  placing  the  end  of  it  upon  the  wall,  said,  "here,  young 
man,  come  under  here."  The  young  man  came  under  the 
cane,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  held  it,  and  when  it  was  perfectly  ad 
justed  to  his  hight,  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "now  come  out  and 
hold  up  the  cane."  This  he  did  while  Mr.  Lincoln  stepped 
under.  Rubbing  his  head  back  and  forth  to  see  that  it  worked 
easily  under  the  measurement,  he  stepped  out,  and  declared 
to  the  sagacious  fellow  who  was  curiously  looking  on,  that  he 
had  guessed  with  remarkable  accuracy — that  he  and  the  young 
man  wrere  exactly  of  the  same  hight.  Then  he  shook  hands 
with  them  and  sent  them  on  their  way.  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
just  as  soon  have  thought  of  cutting  off  his  right  hand  as  he 
would  have  thought  of  turning  those  boys  away  with  the  im 
pression  that  they  had  in  any  way  insulted  his  dignity.  ' 

They  had  hardly  disappeared  when  an  old  and  modestly 
dressed  woman  made  her  appearance.  She  knew  Mr.  Lincoln^ 
but  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  at  first  recognize  her.  Then  she  un 
dertook  to  recall  to  his  memory  certain  incidents  connected 
with  his  rides  upon  the  circuit — especially  his  dining  at  her 
house  upon  the  road  at  different  times.  Then  he  remembered 
her  and  her  home.  Having  fixed  her  own  place  in  his  recol 
lection,  she  tried  to  recall  to  him  a  certain  scanty  dinner  of 
bread  and  milk  that  he  once  ate  at  her  house.  He  could  not 
remember  it — on  the  contrary,  he  only  remembered  that  he 
had  always  fared  well  at  her  house.  "Well,"  said  she,  "one 
day  you  came  along  after  we  had  got  through  dinner,  and  we 
had  eaten  up  everything,  and  I  could  give  you  nothing  but  a 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  235 

bowl  of  bread  and  milk ;  and  you  ate  it ;  and  when  you  got 
up  you  said  it  was  good  enough  for  the  President  of  the  United 
States."  The  good  old  woman,  remembering  the  remark, 
had  come  in  from  the  country,  making  a  journey  of  eight  or 
ten  miles,  to  relate  to  Mr.  Lincoln  this  incident,  which,  in  her 
mind,  had  doubtless  taken  the  form  of  prophesy.  Mr.  Lincoln 
placed  the  honest  creature  at  her  ease,  chatted  with  her  of 
old  times,  and  dismissed  her  in  the  most  happy  and  compla 
cent  frame  of  mind. 

The  interviews  of  this  character  were  almost  numberless, 
constantly  intermingled  with  grave  conversations  with  states 
men  and  politicians  concerning  the  campaign  in  progress,  and 
the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  country.  The  future  was 
very  dark.  Threats  of  secession  grew  louder  and  deeper. 
Steps  towards  treason  were  bolder  with  every  passing  day. 
He  knew  the  spirit  of  slavery.  He  had  measured  it  in  all  the 
length  and  breadth  of  its  malignity  and  treachery.  He  felt 
that  he  was  entering  upon  a  path  full  of  danger,  overshadowed 
all  the  way  with  doubt  and  fear.  With  this  great  care  upon 
him — with  the  burden  of  a  nation  already  taken  upon  his 
shoulders — he  was  often  bowed  down  with  the  deepest  des 
pondency.  He  believed  in  his  inmost  soul  that  he  was  an  in 
strument  in  the  hands  of  God  for  the  accomplishment  of  a 
great  purpose.  The  power  was  above  him,  the  workers  were 
around  him,  the  end  was  beyond  him.  In  him,  Providence, 
the  people  and  the  purpose  of  both  met ;  and  as  a  poor,  weak, 
imperfect  man,  he  felt  humbled  by  the  august  presence,  and 
crushed  by  the  importance  with  which  he  had  been  endowed. 

Of  one  thing  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  sure:  that  in  the  great 
struggle  before  him  he  ought  to  be  supported  by  the  Christian 
sentiment  and  the  Christian  influence  of  the  nation.  Nothing 
pained  him  more  than  the  thought  that  a  man  professing  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  especially  a  man  who  taught  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  should  be  opposed  to  him.  He  felt 
that  every  religious  man — every  man  who  believed  in  God, 
in  the  principles  of  everlasting  justice,  in  truth  and  righteous 
ness — should  be  opposed  to  slavery,  and  should  support 


236  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

i 

and  assist  him  in  the  struggle  against  inhumanity  and  op 
pression  which  he  felt  to  be  imminent.  It  was  to  him  a  great 
mystery  how  those  who  preached  the  gospel  to  the  poor,  and 
who,  by  their  Divine  Master,  were  sent  to  heal  the  broken 
hearted,  to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  to  set  at 
liberty  those  that  were  bruised,  could  be  his  opponents  and 
enemies. 

Mr.  Newton  Bateman,  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction 
for  the  State  of  Illinois,  occupied  a  room  adjoining  and  opening 
into- the  Executive  Chamber.  Frequently  this  door  was  open 
during  Mr.  Lincoln's  receptions ;  and  throughout  the  seven 
months  or  more  of  his  occupation  Mr.  Bateman  saw  him 
nearly  every  day.  Often  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  tired  he 
closed  his  door  against  all  intrusion,  and  called  Mr.  Bateman 
into  his  room  for  a  quiet  talk.  On  one  of  these  occasions 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  a  book  containing  a  careful  canvass  of 
the  city  of  Springfield  in  which  he  lived,  showing  the  candi 
date  for  whom  each  citizen  had  declared  it  his  intention  to 
vote  in  the  approaching  election.  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends  had, 
doubtless  at  his  own  request,  placed  the  result  of  the  canvass 
in  his  hands.  This  was  toward  the  close  of  October,  and 
only  a  few  days  before  the  election.  Calling  Mr.  Bateman  to  a 
seat  at  his  side,  having  previously  locked  all  the  doors,  he  said : 
vlet  us  look  over  this  book.  I  wish  particularly  to  see  how 
the  ministers  of  Springfield  are  going  to  vote."  The  leaves 
were  turned,  one  by  one,  and  as  the  names  were  examined 
Mr.  Lincoln  frequently  asked  if  this  one  and  that  were  not  a 
minister,  or  an  elder,  or  the  member  of  such  or  such  a  church, 
and  sadly  expressed  his  surprise  on  receiving  an  affirmative 
answer.  In  that  manner  they  went  through  the  book,  and 
then  he  closed  it  and  sat  silently  and  for  some  minutes  regard 
ing  a  memorandum  in  pencil  which  lay  before  him.  At  length 
he  turned  to  Mr.  Bateman  with  a  face  full  of  sadness,  and 
said:  "Here  are  twenty-three  ministers,  of  different  denomi 
nations,  and  all  of  them  are  against  me  but  three ;  and  here 
are  a  gi-eat  many  prominent  members  of  the  churches,  a  very 
large  majority  of  whom  are  against  me.  Mr.  Bateman,  I  am 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  237 

not  a  Christian — God  knows  I  would  be  one — but  I  have 
carefully  read  the  Bible,  and  I  do  not  so  understand  this 
book; "  and  he  drew  from  his  bosom  a  pocket  New  Testament. 
"  These  men  well  know,"  he  continued,  "  that  I  am  for  freedom 
in  the  territories,  freedom  everywhere  as  far  as  the  Constitu 
tion  and  laws  will  permit,  and  that  my  opponents  are  for 
slavery.  They  know  this,  and  yet,  with  this  book  in  their 
hands,  in  the  light  of  which  human  bondage  cannot  live  a 
moment,  they  are  going  to  vote  against  me.  I  do  not  under 
stand  it  at  all." 

Here  Mr.  Lincoln  paused — paused  for  long  minutes,  his 
features  surcharged  with  emotion.  Then  he  rose  and  walked 
up  and  down  the  room  in  the  effort  to  retain  or  regain  his 
self-possession.  Stopping  at  last,  he  said,  with  a  trembling 
voice  and  his  cheeks  wet  with  tears:  "I  know  there  is  a  God, 
and  that  He  hates  injustice  and  slavery.  I  see  the  storm 
coming,  and  I  know  that  His  hand  is  in  it.  If  He  has  a  place 
and  work  for  me — and  I  think  He  has — I  believe  I  am  ready. 
I  am  nothing,  but  truth  is  everything.  I  know  1  am  right 
because  I  know  that  liberty  is  right,  for  Christ  teaches  it, 
and  Christ  is  God.  I  have  told  them  that  a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand,  and  Christ  and  reason  say  the 
same ;  and  they  will  find  it  so.  Douglas  don't  care  whether 
slavery  is  voted  up  or  voted  down,  but  God  cares,  and  hu 
manity  cares,  and  I  care;  and  with  God's  help  I  shall  not 
fail.  I  may  not  see  the  end ;  but  it  will  come,  and  I  shall  be 
vindicated ;  and  these  men  will  find  that  they  have  not  read 
their  Bibles  aright." 

Much  of  this  was  uttered  as  if  he  were  speaking  to  him 
self,  and  with  a  sad  and  earnest  solemnity  of  manner  impos 
sible  to  be  described.  After  a  pause,  he  resumed :  "  Does  n't 
it  appear  strange  that  men  can  ignore  the  moral  aspects  of 
this  contest?  A  revelation  could  not  make  it  plainer  to  me 
that  slavery  or  the  government  must  be  destroyed.  The  future 
would  be  something  awful,  as  I  look  at  it,  but  for  this  rock  on 
which  I  stand"  (alluding  to  the  Testament  which  he  still  held 
in  his  hand,)  "especially  with  the  knowledge  of  how  these 


238  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ministers  are  going  to  vote.  It  seems  as  if  God  had  borne 
with  this  thing  (slavery)  until  the  very  teachers  of  religion 
have  come  to  defend  it  from  the  Bible,  and  to  claim  for  it  a 
divine  character  and  sanction ;  and  now  the  cup  of  iniquity 
is  full,  and  the  vials  of  wrath  will  be  poured  out." 

His  last  reference  was  to  certain  prominent  clergymen  in 
the  South,  Drs.  Eoss  and  Palmer  among  the  number ;  and  he 
went  on  to  comment  on  the  atrociousness  and  essential  blas 
phemy  of  their  attempts  to  defend  American  slavery  from  the 
Bible.  After  this  the  conversation  was  continued  for  a  long 
time.  Everything  he  said  was  of  a  peculiarly  deep,  tender 
and  religious  tone,  and  all  was  tinged  with  a  touching  melan 
choly.  He  repeatedly  referred  to  his  conviction  that  the  day 
of  wrath  was  at  hand,  and  that  he  was  to  be  an  actor  in  the 
terrible  struggle  which  would  issue  in  the  overthrow  of  slav 
ery,  though  he  might  not  live  to  see  the  end.  He  repeated 
many  passages  of  the  Bible,  and  seemed  specially  impressed 
with  the  solemn  grandeur  of  portions  of  Revelation,  describ 
ing  the  wrath  of  Almighty  God.  In  the  course  of  the  con 
versation,  he  dwelt  much  upon  the  necessity  of  faith  in  the 
Christian's  God,  as  an  element  of  successful  statesmanship, 
especially  in  times  like  those  which  were  upon  him,  and  said 
that  it  gave  that  calmness  and  tranquillity  of  mind,  that  as 
surance  of  ultimate  success,  which  made  a  man  firm  and  im 
movable  amid  the  wildest  excitements.  After  further  refer 
ence  to  a  belief  in  Divine  Providence,  and  the  fact  of  God  in 
history,  the  conversation  turned  upop  prayer.  He  freely 
stated  his  belief  in  the  duty,  privilege  ana  efficacy  of  prayer, 
and  intimated,  in  no  unmistakable  terms,  that  he  had  sought 
in  that  way  the  divine  guidance  and  favor. 

The  effect  of  this  conversation  upon  the  mind  of  Mr.  Bate- 
man,  a  Christian  gentleman  whom  Mr.  Lincoln  profoundly 
respected,  was  to  convince  him,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had,  in  his 
quiet  way,  found  a  path  to  the  Christian  stand-point — that  he 
had  found  God,  and  rested  on  the  eternal  truth  of  God.  As 
the  two  men  were  about  to  separate,  Mr.  Bateman  remarked: 
"I  have  not  supposed  that  you  were  accustomed  to  think  so 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  239 

much  upon  this  class  of  subjects.  Certainly  your  friends  gen 
erally  are  ignorant  of  the  sentiments  you  have  expressed  to 
me."  He  replied  quickly:  "I  know  they  are.  I  am  obliged 
to  appear  different  to  them;  but  I  think  more  on  these  sub 
jects  than  upon  all  others,  and  I  have  done  so  for  years ;  and 
I  am  willing  that  you  should  know  it." 

This  remarkable  conversation  furnishes  a  golden  link  in  the 
chain  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  history.  It  flashes  a  strong  light 
upon  the  path  he  had  already  trod,  and  illuminates  every  page 
of  his  subsequent  record.  Men  have  wondered  at  his  abound 
ing  charity,  his  love  of  men,  his  equanimity  under  the  most 
distressing  circumstances,  his  patience  under  insult  and  mis 
representation,  his  delicate  consideration  of  the  feelings  of 
the  humble,  his  apparent  incapacity  of  resentment,  his  love  of 
justice,  his  transparent  simplicity,  his  truthfulness,  his  good 
will  toward  his  enemies,  his  beautiful  and  unshaken  faith  in 
the  triumph  of  the  right.  There  was  undoubtedly  something 
in  his  natural  constitution  that  favored  the  development  of  these 
qualities;  but  those  best  acquainted  with  human  nature  will 
hardly  attribute  the  combination  of  excellencies  which  were 
exhibited  in  his  character  and  life  to  the  unaided  forces  of  his 
constitution.  The  man  who  carried  what  he  called  "this 
rock"  in  his  bosom,  who  prayed,  who  thought  more  of  re 
ligious  subjects  than  of  all  others,  who  had  an  undying  faith 
in  the  providence  of  God,  drew  his  life  from  the  highest  foun 
tains. 

It  was  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  hide  these 
religious  experiences  from  the  eyes  of  the  world.  In  the  same 
State  House  where  this  conversation  occurred,  there  were,  men 
who  imagined — who  really  believed — who  freely  said — that 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  probably  revealed  himself  with  less  restraint 
to  them  than  to  others — men  who  thought  they  knew  him  as 
they  knew  their  bosom  companions — who  had  never  in  their 
whole  lives  heard  from  his  lips  one  word  of  all  these  religious 
convictions  and  experiences.  They  did  not  regard  him  as  a 
religious  man.  They  had  never  seen  anything  but  the  active 
lawyer,  the  keen  politician,  the  jovial,  fun-loving  companion, 


240  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

in  Mr.  Lincoln.  All  this  department  of  his  life  he  had  kept 
carefully  hidden  from  them.  Why  he  should  say  that  he  was 
.  obliged  to  appear  differently  to  others  does  not  appear ;  but 
the  fact  is  a  matter  of  history  that  he  never  exposed  his  own 
religious  life  to  those  who  had  no  sympathy  with  it.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  the  clergymen  of  Springfield  knew  anything 
of  these  experiences.  Very  few  of  them  were  in  political 
sympathy  with  him ;  and  it  is  evident  that  he  could  open  his 
heart  to  no  one  except  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances. 
The  fountain  from  which  gushed  up  so  grand  and  good  a  life 
was  kept  carefully  covered  from  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Its 
possessor  looked  into  it  often,  but  the  careless  or  curious 
crowd  were  never  favored  with  the  vision.  There  was  much 
in  his  conduct  that  was  simply  a  cover  to  these  thoughts — an 
attempt  to  conceal  them.  It  is  more  than  probable  that,  on 
separating  with  Mr.  Bateman  on  this  occasion,  he  met  some  old 
friend,  and,  departing  by  a  single  bound  from  his  tearful  mel 
ancholy  and  his  sublime  religious  passion,  he  told  him  some 
story,  or  indulged  in  some  jest,  that  filled  his  own  heart  with 
mirthfulness,  and  awoke  convulsions  of  laughter  in  him  who 
heard  it, 

These  sudden  and  wide  transitions  of  feeling  were  common 
with  him.  He  lived  for  years  a  double  life — a  deep  and  a 
shallow  one,  Oppressed  with  great  responsibilities,  absorbed 
by  the  most  profound  problems  relating  to  his  own  spirit  and 
destiny,  brought  into  sympathetic  relation  with  the  woes  of 
the  world,  and  living  much  in  the  very  depths  of  a  sadness 
whose  natural  fountain  had  been  deepened  by  the  experience 
of  his  life,  he  found  no  relief  except  by  direct  and  entire 
translation  to  that  other  channel  of  his  life  which  lay  among 
his  shallowest  emotions.  His  sense  of  the  ludicrous  and  the 
grotesque,  of  the  witty  and  the  funny,  was  really  something 
wonderful ;  and  when  this  sense  was  appealed  to  by  a  story, 
or  an  incident,  or  a  jest,  he  seemed  to  leave  all  his  dignity 
aside,  and  give  himself  up  to  mirth  with  no  more  of  self-re 
straint  than  if  he  were  a  boy  of  twelve  years.  He  resorted 
to  this  channel  of  life  for  relief.  It  was  here  that  he  won 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  241 

strength  for  trial  by  forgetting  trial.  It  was  "here^hat  lie 
restored  the  balance  which  sadness  had  destroyed.*  Such  a 
nature  and  character  seem  full  of  contradictions ;  and  a  man 
who  is  subject  to  such  transitions  will  always  be"a  mystery  to 
those  who  do  not  know  him  wholly.  Thus  no  two  men  among 
his  intimate  friends  will  agree  concerning  him. 

The  writer  has  conversed  with  multitudes  of  men  who 
claimed  to  know  Mr.  Lincoln  intimately;  yet  there  are  not 
two  of  the  whole  number  who  agree  in  their  estimate  of  him. 
The  fact  was  that  he  rarely  showed  more  than  one  aspect  of 
himself  to  one  man.  He  opened  himself  to  men  in  different 
directions.  It  was  rare  that  he  exhibited  what  was  religious 
in  him ;  and  he  never  did  this  at  all,  except  when  he  found 
just  the  nature  and  character  that  were  sympathetic  with  that 
aspect  and  element  of  his  character.  A  great  deal  of  his 
best,  deepest,  largest  life  he  kept  almost  constantly  from  view, 
because  he  would  not  expose  it  to  the  eyes  and  apprehension 
of  the  careless  multitude. 

To  illustrate  the  effect  of  the  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
intercourse  with  men,  it  may  be  said  that  men  who  knew  him 
through  all  his  professional  and  political  life  have  offered 
opinions  as  diametrically  opposite  as  these,  viz:  that  he  was 
a  very  ambitious  man,  and  that  he  was  without  a  particle  of 
ambition ;  that  he  was  one  of  the  saddest  men  that  ever  lived, 
and  that  he  was  one  of  the  jolliest  men  that  ever  lived ;  that 
he  was  very  religious,  but  that  he  was  not  a  Christian;  that 
he  was  a  Christian,  but  did  not  know  it ;  that  he  was  so 
far  from  being  a  religious  man  or  a  Christian  that  "  the  less 
said  upon  that  subject  the  better;"  that  he  was  the  most 
cunning  man  in  America,  and  that  he  had  not  a  particle  of 
cunning  in  him;  that  he  had  the  strongest  personal  attach 
ments,  and  that  he  had  no  personal  attachments  at  all — only  a 
general  good  feeling  toward  everybody ;  that  he  was  a  man  of 
indomitable  will,  and  that  he  was  a  man  almost  without  a 
will;  that  he  was  a  tyrant,  and  that  he  was  the  softest-hearted, 
most  brotherly  man  that  ever  lived ;  that  he  was  remarkable 
for  his  pure-mindedness,  and  that  he  was  the  foulest  in  his 
16 


242  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

jests  and  stories  of  any  man  in  the  country;  that  he  was  a 
witty  man,  and  that  he  was  only  a  retailer  of  the  wit  of  others ; 
that  his  apparent  candor  and  fairness  were  only  apparent,  and 
that  they  were  as  real  as  his  head  and  his  hands ;  that  he  was 
a  boor,  and  that  he  was  in  all  essential  respects  a  gentleman  ; 
that  he  was  a  leader  of  the  people,  and  that  he  was  always 
led  by  the  people;  that  he  was  cool  and  impassive,  and  that 
he  was  susceptible  of  the  strongest  passions.  It  is  only  by 
tracing  these  separate  streams  of  impression  back  to  their 
fountain  that  we  are  able  to  arrive  at  anything  like  a  compe 
tent  comprehension  of  the  man,  or  to  learn  why  he  came  to 
be  held  in  such  various  estimation.  Men  caught  only  separate 
aspects  of  his  character — only  the  fragments  that  were  called 
into  exhibition  by  their  own  qualities. 


Thus  the  months  passed  away  until  the  election.  His  room 
was  thronged  by  visitors  from  every  portion  of  the  Union, 
drawn  to  him  by  a  great  variety  of  motives;  and  to  all  he 
gave  an  open  and  cordial  welcome.  In  the  meantime  his  po 
litical  opponents  had  virtually  given  up  the  contest.  While 
they  worked  faithfully  within  their  own  organizations,  they 
openly  or  secretly  conceded  his  election.  At  the  South  no 
attempt  was  made  to  conceal  the  conviction  that  he  would  be 
the  next  President  of  the  United  States.  Indeed,  this  was  so 
entirely  what  they  desired  that  they  would  have  regarded  the 
election  of  Mr.  Douglas  as  a  calamity,  although  it  may  well 
be  doubted  whether  they  would  have  been  deterred  from  their 
disunion  schemes  by  his  election.  They  took  pains  to  poison 
the  public  mind  by  every  possible  expedient.  They  identified 
the  cause  of  the  republicans  with  the  John  Brown  raid  into 
Virginia,  with  everything  that  was  offensive  to  the  pride  of 
the  South  in  Helper's  "  Impending  Crisis,"  with  "  abolitionism" 
which  was  the  most  disgusting  and  dangerous  sin  in  the  pro- 
slavery  catalogue  of  sins.  It  was  all  a  lie.  Not  a  republican 
was  concerned  in  or  approved  of  the  John  Brown  invasion,  for 
which  Virginia  had  exacted  the  life  of  that  stern  old  enthusiast. 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  243 

Helper's  book  was  a  home  production  of  the  South ;  and  the 
creed  of  the  party  had  no  item  looking  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  Not  content  with  misrepresenting  Mr.  Lincoln's 
cause  and  principles,  they  traduced  him  and  his  associates 
upon  the  ticket.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  the  "Illinois  ape,1' 
and  this,  not  by  the  rabble,  but  by  the  leaders  of  public  opin 
ion  •,  while  Mr.  Hamlin  was  actually  believed  "by  many  south 
ern  people  to  be  a  mulatto,  through  the  representations  of 
presses  and  politicians.  Every  falsehood  that  could  sting  the 
southern  mind  to  malignity  and  resentment  against  the  North, 
and  make  detestable  the  man  whom  the  North  was  about  to 
elect  to  the  presidency,  was  shamelessly  uttered.  The  object, 
of  course,  was  to  fill  the  southern  mind  with  bitterness  against 
the  North,  to  alienate  the  Union  from  it's  affections,  to  foster 
its  pride,  and  to  prepare  it  for  the  premeditated  and  prepared 
separation. 

Mr.  Lincoln  saw  the  gathering  storm,  and  felt  that  upon 
him  it  would  expend  its  wildest  fury ;  yet  he  cherished  no  re 
sentment  against  these  men  or  their  section  for  all  the  wrongs 

C*  O 

they  heaped  upon  him,  and  the  woes  they  were  bringing  upon 
the  country,  lie  was  only  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  a 
higher,  power.  It  was  only  the  natural  exhibition  of  the 
spirit  of  a  system  of  wrong  which  was  making  its  last  terrible 
struggle  for  life.  The  hatred  aroused  in  him  passed  over  the 

cTO  1 

heads  of  his  enemies  and  fastened  itself  upon  the  institution 
which  could  make  such  demons  of  men.  If  lie  was  an  instru 
ment  in  the  hands  of  a  higher  power,  they  were  instruments 
in  the  hands  of  a  lower  power,  malignant  but  mighty  indeed. 
He  had  charity,  because  he  felt  these  men  to  be  the  victims 
of  a  false  education — of  a  great  mistake.  He  remembered 
that  had  he  been  bred  as  they  had  been,  the  probabilities  were 
that  he  should  sympathize  with  them. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  what  was  called  a  wise  candidate.  He 
held  his  tongue.  No  abuse  provoked  him  to  utter  a  word  in 
self-vindication.  He  had  accepted  the  platform  of  the  party 
and  his  record  was  before  the  country.  So  he  calmly  awaited 
the  result. 


244  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

On  the  sixth  of  November  the  election  took  place  through 
out  the  whole  country,  and  the  result  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  tri 
umph,  not  by  a  majority  of  the  votes  cast,  but  by  a  handsome 
plurality.  The  popular  vote  for  him  was  1,857,610;  while 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  received  1,365,976  votes,  John  C.  Breck- 
inriclge  847,953,  and  John  Bell  590,631.  In  the  electoral 
college  Mr.  Lincoln  had  180  votes,  Mr.  Douglas  receiving  12, 
Mr.  Breckinridge  72,  and  Mr.  Bell  39;  and  when,  on  the  fol 
lowing  thirteenth  of  February,  in  a  joint  session  of  both 
Houses  of  Congress,  these  votes  were  declared,  it  was  the  of 
fice  of  John  C.  Breckinridge  himself,  then  Vice-President,  to 
pronounce  Mr.  Lincoln  the  constitutionally  elected  President 
of  the  United  States  for  four  years  from  the  succeeding  fourth 
of  March.  And  this  man  \vho,  by  going  into  the  election  as  a 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  and  declaring  the  result  of  the 
contest,  hatl  bound  himself  by  every  principle  of  honor  to 
abide  by  the  result,  was  a  foul  traitor  at  heart,  and  only  left 
the  chair  he  disgraced  to  become  a  leader  in  the  armies  of 
treason. 

The  result  of  the  election  was  great  popular  rejoicing  at 
the  North,  great  exasperation  at  the  South,  great  fear  and 
trembling  among  compromisers  of  both  sections,  and  a  general 
conviction  that  the  crisis  so  long  threatened  was  actually  upon 
the  nation.  Among  the  republicans  there  was  this  feeling :  that 
they  had  fairly,  on  an  open  declaration  of  principles  and  policy, 
and  strictly  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
elected  a  president;  and  that  if,  for  this,  the  South  was  de 
termined  to  make  war,  the  contest  might  as  well  come  first  as 
last.  They  knew  they  had  made  no  proposition  and  enter 
tained  no  intention  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  states  where 
the  Constitution  protected  it,  that  they  had  made  no  aggres 
sions  upon  the  institution,  and  had  only  endeavored  to  limit 
its  spread  into  free  territory.  If  this  was  cause  of  war,  then 
they  were  ready  for  the  fight.  Feeling  thus,  and  thus  declar 
ing  themselves,  they  still  did  not  generally  believe  there  would 
be  a  war.  They  thought  the  matter  would  yet  rise  upon  the 
wings  of  some  convenient  wind  and  be  blown  away. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  245 

Of  course  the  man  of  all  others  chiefly  concerned  in  the 
results  of  the  election  was  intensely  interested.  The  effect 
upon  his  nervous  system,  not  altogether  ephemeral,  is  well 
illustrated  by  an  incident  which  he  subsequently  related  to 
several  of  his  friends,  and  which  has  found  no  better  record, 
perhaps,  than  in  an  article  from  the  pen  of  Major  John  Hay, 
one  of  his  private  secretaries  in  Washington,  published  in 
Harper's  Magazine  for  July,  1865.  Major  Hay  reports  the 
incident  as  nearly  as  possible  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  words. 

"It  was  just  after  my  election  in  1860,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln, 
"when  the  news  had  been  coming  in  thick  and  fast  all  day, 
and  there  had  been  a  great  'hurrah  boys !'  so  that  I  was  well 
tired  out  and  went  home  to  rest,  throwing  myself  upon  a 
lounge  in  my  chamber.  Opposite  to  where  I  lay  was  a  bu 
reau  with  a  swinging  glass  upon  it ;  and  looking  in  that  glass, 
I  saw  myself  reflected  nearly  at  full  length ;  but  my  face,  I 
noticed,  had  two  separate  and  distinct  images,  the  tip  of  the 
nose  of  one  being  about  three  inches  from  the  tip  of  the  other. 
I  was  a  little  bothered,  perhaps  startled,  and  got  up  and  looked 
in  the  glass,  but  the  illusion  vanished.  On  lying  down  again, 
I  saw  it  a  second  time,  plainer,  if  possible,  than  before ;  and 
then  I  noticed  that  one  of  the  faces  was  a  little  paler — say 
five  shades — than  the  other.  I  got  up  and  the  thing  melted 
away,  and  I  went  off,  and,  in  the  excitement  of  the  hour  for 
got  all  about  it, — nearly,  but  not  quite,  for  the  thing  would 
once  in  a  while  come  up,  and  give  me  a  little  pang  as  though 
something  uncomfortable  had  happened.  When  I  went  home, 
I  told  my  wife  about  it,  and  a  few  days  after  I  tried  the  ex 
periment  again,  when,  sure  enough,  the  thing  came  back  again; 
but  I  never  succeeded  in  bringing  the  ghost  back  after  that, 
though  I  once  tried  very  industriously  to  show  it  to  my  wife, 
who  was  worried  about  it  somewhat.  She  thought  it  was  '  a 
sign '  that  I  was  to  be  elected  to  a  second  term  of  office,  and 
that  the  paleness  of  one  of  the  faces  was  an  omen  that  I  should 
not  see  life  through  the  last  term." 

The  President  had  good  sense  enough  to  regard  the  vision 
as  an  optical  illusion,  growing  out  of  the  excited  condition  of 


246  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

his  nervous  system  at  the  time ;  yet,  with  that  tinge  of  super 
stition  which  clings  to  every  sensitive  and  deeply  thoughtful 
man,  in  a  world  full  of  mysteries,  he  was  so  far  affected  by  it 
as  to  feel  that  "something  uncomfortable  had  happened."  In 
the  -light  of  subsequent  events,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  prophetic  in 
terpretation  of  the  vision  has  almost  a  startling  interest. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  become  the  most  important  man  on  the 
continent.  Parties  were  given  in  his  honor,  autograph  hunters 
beset  him  everywhere,  and  office-seekers  met  him  on  the  right 
hand  and  on  the  left.  That  he  felt  at  home  in  this  new  life 
is  not  probable,  but  he  had  the  good  sense  to  put  on  no  airs, 
and  to  undertake  no  change  of  his  manners  in  meeting  men 
and  women.  From  the  day  of  his  election  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  he  was  the  same  unpretending  man  that  he  was  when 
he  first  entered  Springfield  to  practice  law.  Pie  had  known 
nothing  of  drawing-rooms  in  his  youth,  and  he  affected  to 
know  nothing  of  them  when  every  drawing-room  of  loyal 
America  would  have  swung  wide  its  doors  to  welcome  him. 
It  was  noticed  by  the  critical  that  he  found  great  difficulty  in 
disposing  of  his  hands  and  feet.  It  is  quite  possible  that  they 
were  hard  to  be  disposed  of,  and  that  he  succeeded  with  them 
quite  as  well  as  he  would  if  he  had  been  a  master  of  deport 
ment.  If  the  hands  were  large,  they  had  taken  no  bribes;  if 
his  feet  were  heavy,  they  had  outstripped  the  fleetest  in  the 
race  of  ambition.  If  he 'could  not  win  admiration  for  his 
personal  graces,  he  could  win  love  for  his  personal  goodness. 

He  visited  Chicago  after  his  election,  and  met  with  a  mag 
nificent  welcome.  One  or  two  little  incidents  of  this  trip  will 
illustrate  especially  his  consideration  for  children.  He  was 
holding  a  reception  at  the  Tremont  House.  A  fond  father 
took  in  a  little  boy  by  the  hand  who  was  anxious  to  see  the 
new  President.  The  moment  the  child  entered  the  parlor  door, 
he,  of  his  own  motion,  and  quite  to  the  surprise  of  his  father, 
took  off  his  hat,  and  giving  it  a  swing,  cried,  "Hurrah  for 
Lincoln!"  There  was  a  crowd,  but  as  soon  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
could  get  hold  of  the  little  fellow,  he  lifted  him  in  his  hands, 
and  tossing  him  toward  the  ceiling  laughingly  shouted :  "  Hur- 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  247 

rah  for  you!"  To  Mr.  Lincoln  it  was  evidently  a  refreshing 
episode  in  the  dreary  work  of  hand-shaking.  At  a  party  in 
Chicago,  during  this  visit,  he  saw  a  little  girl  timidly  ap 
proaching  him.  He  called  her  to  him,  and  asked  her  what 
she  wished  for.  She  replied  that  she  wanted  his  name.  Mr. 
Lincoln  looked  back  into  the  room  and  said :  "  But  here  are 
other  little  girls — they  would  feel  badly  if  I  should  give 
my  name 'only  to  you."  The  little  girl  replied  that  there 
were  eight  of  them  in  all.  "  Then,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  get 
me  eight  sheets  of  paper,  and  a  pen  and  ink,  and  I  will  see 
what  I  can  do  for  you."  The  paper  was  brought,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  sat  down  in  the  crowded  drawing-room,  and  wrote  a 
sentence  upon  each  sheet,  appending  his  name ;  and  thus  every 
little  girl  carried  off  her  souvenir. 

During  all  this  period  of  waiting  for  office,  Mr.  Lincoln 
carried  a  calm  exterior  but  events  were  transpiring  in  the  na 
tion  that  gave  him  the  most  intense  anxiety,  and  filled  every 
leisure  hour  with  painful  thought. 

There  were,  of  course,  the  usual  efforts  at  cabinet  making 
on  the  part  of  presses  and  politicians,  and  he  was  favored  with 
copious  advice.  It  has  been  publicly  said  that  he  really  de 
sired  to  put  Mr.  Stephens  of  Georgia,  whom  he  had  been 
somewhat  intimate  with  in  Congress,  into  his  cabinet.  The 
appointment  was  at  least  strongly  urged  upon  him.  The  re 
publicans  were  seeking  for  some  policy  by  which  the  South 
could  be  silenced  and  held  to  its  allegiance.  Many  republi 
cans  in  "Washington  were  inclined  to  compromise  the  slavery 
question  on  the  popular  sovereignty  position.  Others  thought 
it  would  be  well  to  put  southerners  into  the  cabinet,  and  the 
names  of  Stephens  of  Georgia  and  Scott  of  Virginia  were 
mentioned.  These  facts  a  personal  friend  communicated  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  and  under  date  of  December  eighteenth,  he  re 
plied  :  "  I  am  sorry  any  republican  inclines  to  dally  with  popu 
lar  sovereignty  of  any  sort.  It  acknowledges  that  slavery 
has  equal  rights  with  liberty,  and  surrenders  all  we  have  con 
tended  for.  Once  fastened  on  us  as  a  settled  policy,  fillibus- 
tering  for  all  south  of  us  and  making  slave  states  of  it  follow 


248  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

in  spite  of  us,  with  an  early  supreme  court  decision  holding 
our  free  state  constitutions  to  be  unconstitutional.  Would 
Scott  or  Stephens  go  into  the  cabinet?  And  if  yea,  on  what 
terms  ?  Do  they  come  to  me  ?  or  I  go  to  them  ?  Or  are  we 
to  lead  off  in  open  hostility  to  each  other  ?" 

In  Mr.  Lincoln,  though  the  prospect  was  dark  and  the  way 
dangerous,  there  was  no  disposition  to  compromise  the  princi 
ples  of  his  life  and  his  party,  and  no  entertainment  of  the  illu 
sion  that  concord  could  come  of  discord  in  his  cabinet.  In  the 
latter  matter  he  kept  his  own  counsel  and  awaited  his  own 
time. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

To  appreciate  the  enormity  of  the  rebellion  of  which  Mr. 
Lincoln's  election  was  made  the  pretext,  by  the  southern 
leaders,  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the  whole  South,  by 
becoming  a  party  in  the  election,  committed  itself  to  the  result. 
They  were  in  all  honor  bound  to  abide  by  that  result,  what 
ever  it  might  be.  If  the  foes  of  Mr.  Lincoln  had  refused  to 
vote  at  all,  they  would  have  gone  into  the  rebellion  with  a 
much  cleaner  record ;  but  the  first  item  of  that  record  was  a 
breach  of  personal  honor  on  the  part  of  every  man  who  en 
gaged  in  insurrection.  Every  member  of  both  houses  of 
Congress,  every  member  of  the  cabinet,  and  every  federal 
office-holder  who  turned  against  the  government,  was  obliged,, 
beyond  this  breach  of  personal  honor  to  become  a  perjurer — 
to  trample  upon  the  solemn  oath  by  virtue  of  which  he  held 
his  office. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  operations  of  the 
plotters  in  Mr.  Buchanan's  cabinet.  Before  the  election, 
Floyd  had,  as  has  already  been  stated,  sent  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  thousand  muskets  from  northern  armories  to  southern 
arsenals.  General  Scott  had  warned  him  of  the  danger  to 
which  the  federal  forts  at  the  South  were  liable,  and  had  ad 
vised  that,  as  a  precautionary  measure,  they  should  be  garri 
soned.  To  this  warning  the  secret  traitor  paid  no  attention. 
Attorney  General  Black  had  given  his  official  opinion  that 
Congress  had  no  right  to  carry  on  a  war  against  any  state. 
The  President  himself  was  only  a  weak  instrument  in  the 


250  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

hands  of  the  intriguers.  He  consented  to  have  his  hands  tied ; 
and  if  he  made  any  protests  they  were  weak  and  childish. 
More  than  anything  else  he  longed  to  have  them  delay  the 
execution  of  their  schemes  until  he  should  be  released  from 
office. 

South  Carolina,  the  breeding  bed  of  secession  and  the  birth 
place  of  the  fatal  State  Rights  Heresy,  took  the  lead  in  the  se 
cession  movement,  and  called  a  state  convention  to  meet  at  Co 
lumbia  on  the  seventeenth  of  December.  On  the  tenth  of 
November,  four  days  after  the  election,  a  bill  was  introduced 
in  the  legislature  of  the  state  calling  out  te.n  thousand  volun 
teers.  The  two  senators  from  South  Carolina,  Chesnut  and 
Hammond,  resigned  their  seats,  one  on  the  tenth  and  the 
other  on  the  eleventh  of  the  same  month.  Robert  Toombs,  a 
Georgia  senator,  made  a  violent  secession  speech  at  Milledge- 
ville  in  his  own  state,  and  this,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
he  continued  to  hold  his  seat.  Howell  Cobb,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  resigned  on  the  tenth  of  December,  declaring 
his  inability  to  relieve  the  treasury  from  the  'embarrassments 
into  which  he  had  purposely  led  it ;  and  two  days  before  the 
secession  convention  met  in  South  Carolina  the  Secretary  of 
War,  Floyd,  accepted  the  requisition  of  that  state  for  her  quota 
of  United  States  arms  for  1861.  Meetings  were  held  all  over 
the  South  where  treason  was  boldly  plotted  and  promulgated, 
and  the  people  were  goaded  to  the  adoption  of  the  desperate 
expedients  determined  upon  by  the  leaders.  The  South  Caro 
lina  Secession  Convention  mec  at  Columbia  on  the  seventeenth 
of  December,  but,  on  account  of  the  prevalence  of  the  small 
pox  there,  adjourned  to  Charleston,  where,  on  the  twentieth, 
they  formally  passed  an  ordinance  of  separation,  and  declared 
"that  the  Union  now  (then)  subsisting  between  South  Caro 
lina  and  other  states  under  the  name  of  the  United  States  of 
America  is  hereby  (was  thereby)  dissolved." 

The  passage  of  this  ordinance  filled  the  Charlestonians  with 
delight,  and,  in  the  evening,  in  the  presence  of  an  immense 
crowd,  the  fatal  instrument  was  signed  and  sealed  ;  and  Gov 
ernor  Pickens  immediately  issued  a  proclamation,  declaring 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLX.  251 

South  Carolina  to  be  "a  separate,  free,  sovereign  and  inde 
pendent  state."  This  was  followed  by  the  withdrawal  of 
Messrs.  McQueen,  Boyd,  Bonham  and  Ashmore  from  Con 
gress,  although  their  resignation  was  not  recognized  by  the 
speaker,  on  the  ground  that  such  an  act  would  be  a  recogni 
tion  of  the  legitimacy  of  the  action  of  the  state. 

Before  the  adjournment  of  the  South  Carolina  Convention, 
resolutions  were  passed  calling  for  a  convention  of  the  seceding 
states  to  be  held  at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  for  the  purpose  of 
forming  a  southern  confederacy,  and  providing  or  suggesting  a 
plan  of  operations  and  organization.  The  Congressional  con 
spirators  were  active  in  Washington,  and  in  constant  com 
munication  with  their  respective  states,  urging  on  the  work 
of  national  disintegration.  On  the  eighth  of  January  a  cau 
cus  of  southern  senators  at  Washington  counseled  immediate 
secession ;  and  at  the  national  capital  there  was  no  influence 
that  could,  or  would,  withstand  this  reckless  and  rampant 
treason.  As  quickly  as  it  could  be  done  consistently  with  the 
safety  of  the  cause  of  treason,  Mississippi,  Florida,  Alabama, 
Georgia,  Louisiana  and  Texas,  followed  the  lead  of  South 
Carolina  into  secession.  Forts  and  arsenals  were  seized  in  all 
the  seceded  states,  the  steamer  Star  of  the  West,  sent  to 
Charleston  with  reinforcements  and  supplies  for  Major  Ander 
son,  was  driven  out  of  the  harbor,  a  southern  confederacy  was 
formed,  with  Jefferson  Davis  as  president,  and  thus,  by  every 
necessary  preliminary  act,  was  the  most  terrible  rebellion  in 
augurated  that  has  ever  reddened  the  pages  of  history.  In  cab 
inet  meeting,  the  southern  secretaries,  still  occupying  places, 
were  boldly  demanding  that  the  forts  at  Charleston  should  be 
evacuated ;  and  Mr.  Buchanan  was  too  weak  to  take  a  posi 
tion  against  them.  But  he  had  one  man  in  h'is  cabinet  who 
was  not  afraid  to  speak  the  truth.  Edwin  M.  Stanton  who 
had  been  called  to  fill  the  office  of  attorney  general  on  the  re 
tirement  of  Mr.  Black,  rose  and  said:  " Mr.  President,  it  is 
my  duty,  as  your  legal  adviser,  to  say  that  you  have  no  right 
to  give  up  the  property  of  the  government,  or  abandon  the 
soldiers  of  the  United  States  to  its  enemies ;  and  the  course 


252  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

proposed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  if  followed,  is  trea 
son,  and  will  involve  you  and  all  concerned  in  treason."  For 
the  first  time  in  this  cabinet  treason  had  been  called  by  its 
true  name,  and  the  men  who  were  leading  the  President  and 
the  country  to  ruin  were  told  to  their  faces  the  nature  of  their 
foul  business.  Floyd  and  Thompson,  who  had  had  every 
thing  their  own  way,  sprang  fiercely  to  their  feet,  while  Mr. 
Holt,  the  Postmaster  General,  took  his  position  by  the  side 
of  Mr.  Stanton;  and  Mr.  Buchanan  besought  them  with  a 
senile  whine  to  take  their  seats.  Thus  bolstered  by  Mr. 
Stanton  the  President  determined  not  to  withdraw  Major  An 
derson.  This  act  of  Mr.  Stanton  was  the  first  in  Mr.  Bu 
chanan's  administration  that  seemed  to  be  based  on  a  full 
comprehension  of  the  nature  of  the  situation ;  and  it  was  a 
noble  introduction  to  the  great  work  he  was  destined  to  ac 
complish  in  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion. 

These  events  occurring  in  rapid  succession  produced  a  pro 
found  impression  at  the  North.  The  whole  country  was  filled 
with  feverish  apprehension.  A  peace  Congress  took  up  its 
abode  in  Washington,  with  the  notorious  John  Tyler  for 
president.  Measures  of  compromise  were  introduced  into 
Congress  and  urged  with  great  vigor.  Those  northern  states 
that  had  passed  "personal  liberty  bills,"  and  other  measures 
offensive  to  the  South  made  haste  to  repeal  them,  that  all  pos 
sible  pretexts  for  rebellion  might  be  put  out  of  the  way. 
Every  practicable  attempt  wras  made  by  the  fearful  and  the 
faithless  to  compel  such  concessions  to  the  slave  power  as 
would  calm  its  ire,  and  obviate  the  necessity  of  armed  collision. 
There  were  not  wanting  men  in  the  North  whose  sympathies 
were  with  the  traitors,  and  who  would  willingly  and  gladly 
have  joined  them  in  the  attempt  to  revolutionize  the  govern 
ment,  by  preventing  Mr.  Lincoln  from  taking  his  seat,  and 
delivering  over  Washington  and  the  government  to  the  plot 
ters.  Indeed,  many  of  the  traitors  openly  declared  that  by 
secession  they  did  not  mean  secession  at  all,  but  revolution. 
Commerce  and  manufactures  begged  for  peace  at  the  slave 
holder's  price,  whatever  it  might  be. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  253 

Washington  itself  was  full  of  treason.  It  was  tlie  prevail- 
ino-  spirit  of  all  the  fashionable  life  of  the  national  capital. 
All  the  governmental  departments  were  crowded  with  it.  It 
was  the  talk  of  the  hotels.  Loyalty  was  snubbed  and  dis 
honored.  Maryland,  though  she  had  passed  no  ordinance  of 
secession,  was  disloyal.  The  sympathies  of  the  higher  classes 
of  Baltimore  were  all  with  the  traitors.  Thus  secession  was 
an  accomplished  fact,  the  forts  and  arsenals  of  the  United 
States  at  the  South  were  in  the  hands  of  the  traitors,  the 
northern  arsenals  were  stripped,  every  available  ship  with 
the  exception  of  two'was  beyond  call,  the  confederate  govern 
ment  was  organized,  the  United  States  treasury  was  bank 
rupt,  the  whole  South  was  seething  with  the  excitement  of 
treason,  disloyalty  reigned  in  every  department  of  the  gov 
ernment,  southern  sympathizers  were  scattered  over  the  whole 
North,  business  was  depressed,  and  a  fearful  looking-for  of 
terrible  days  and  terrible  events  had  taken  possession  of  those 
who  still  loved  the  Union,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  started  on  his 
journey  to  Washington,  to  assume  the  office  to  which  he  had 
been  elected. 

Silently,  and  with  sad  forebodings,  had  he  waited  in  Spring 
field  the  opening  of  the  storm.  With  an  intense  interest  he  had 
followed  the  development  of  the  disunion  scheme,  and  knowing 
the  character  of  the  southern  leaders  he  appreciated  the  des 
perate  nature  of  the  struggle  upon  which  he  was  entering. 

On  the  llth  of  February,  1861,  Mr.  Lincoln  reluctantly 
bade  adieu  to  the  peaceful  scenes  of  home  and  the  grateful 
presence  of  his  best  personal  friends,  for  the  untried  field  of 
high  official  life.  That  he  dreaded  the  change,  and  committed 
himself  to  it  with  the  gravest  forebodings,  there  is  no  ques 
tion.  Already  had  the  threats  of  assassination  reached  his 
ears.  It  had  been  widely  hinted  by  his  enemies  that  his  in 
auguration  would  never  be  permitted ;  and  even  if  it  should 
be,  he  knew  that  the  most  oppressive  duties  awaited  him. 

On  his  departure  for  the  railroad  station,  he  was  accompa 
nied  by  a  large  concourse  of  his  neighbors  and  friends,  the 
most  of  whom  insisted  on  a  parting  shake  of  the  hand.  After 


254  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

passing  through  this  trial,  he  appeared  upon  the  platform  of 
the  car  set  apart  for  himself  and  his  family  and  friends,  and 
with  the  deepest  feeling  delivered  to  them  his  parting  words. 

"My  friends,"  said  he,  "no  one  not  in  my  position  can  ap 
preciate  the  sadness  I  feel  at  this  parting.  To  this  people  I 
owe  all  that  I  am.  Here  I  have  lived  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century.  Here  my  children  were  born,  and  here  one  of  them 
lies  buried.  I  know  not  how  soon  I  shall  see  you  again.  A 
duty  devolves  upon  me  which  is  greater,  perhaps,  than  that 
which  has  devolved  upon  any  other  man  since  the  days  of 
Washington.  He  never  woull  have  succeeded  except  for  the 
aid  of  Divine  Providence,  upon  which  he  at  all  times  relied. 
I  feel  that  I  cannot  succeed  without  the  same  divine  aid  which 
sustained  him,  and  on  the  same  Almighty  Being  I  place  my 
reliance  for  support :  and  I  hope  you,  my  friends,  will  pray 
that  I  may  receive  that  divine  assistance  without  which  I  can 
not  succeed,  but  with  which  success  is  certain.  Again,  I  bid 
you  all  an  affectionate  farewell." 

This  parting  address  was  telegraphed  to  every  part  of  the 
country,  and  was  strangely  misinterpreted.  So  little  was  the 
man's  character  understood  that  his  simple  and  earnest  request 
that  his  neighbors  should  pray  for  him  was  received  by  many 
as  an  evidence  both  of  his  weakness  and  his  hypocrisy.  Xo 
President  had  ever  before  asked  the  people,  in  a  public  address, 
to  pray  for  him.  It  sounded  like  the  cant  of  the  conventicle 
to  ears  unaccustomed  to  the  language  of  piety  from  the  lips 
of  politicians.  The  request  was  tossed  about  as  a  joke — "  old 
Abe's  last" — but  it  came  from  a  heart  surcharged  with  a  sense 
of  need,  and  strong  in  its  belief  that  the  Almighty  listens  to 
the  prayers  of  men. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  before  him,  on  this,  journey,  one  of  the 
most  difficult  tasks  of  his  life.  The  country  was  very  anxious 
to  get  some  hint  as  to  his  policy.  This  hint  he  did  not  intend 
to  give,  until  he  should  be  obliged  to  give  it  officially.  His 
task,  then,  of  talking  without  saying  anything,  was  not  only 
a  new  one,  but  it  was  one  for  which  he  had  no  talent.  He 
had  never  acquired,  and  could  never  acquire,  the  faculty  of 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LIXCOLN.  255 

uttering  graceful  and  acceptable  nothings.  Give  him  some 
thing  to  talk  about,  and  he  could  talk.  Give  him  a  knotty 
point  to  argue,  and  he  could  argue ;  but  to  talk  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  talk  was  beyond  his  power.  To  talk  when  it  was 
his  impulse  and  his  policy  to  say  nothing,  was  the  hardest 
task  of  his  life.  Hence,  there  had  never  been  a  passage  in 
his  life  in  which  he  appeared  to  such  a  disadvantage  as  he  did 
in  the  speeches  made  during  this  journey.  He  could  win  the 
profoundest  admiration  of  the  gifted  and  the  learned  at  the 
Cooper  Institute,  but  on  the  platform  of  a  railroad  car,  or  be 
fore  an  august  committee  of  city  magnates,  he  was  as  much 
at  a  loss  as  a  school-boy  would  have  been. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  and  her  three  boys  were  in  the  car  as  it  rolled 
out  of  Springfield ;  and  with  them  a  number  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
old  friends,  Governor  Yates,  Ex-Governor  Moore,  Dr.  "W. 
M.  Wallace,  Hon.  N.  P.  Judd,  Hon.  O.  H.  Browning,  Judge 
David  Davis  and  Colonel  E.  E.  Ellsworth  were  of  the  num 
ber,  as  were  also  John  M.  Hay  and  J.  G.  Nicolay,  afterwards 
Mr.  Lincoln's  private  secretaries.  The  first  point  of  destina 
tion  was  Indianapolis,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  out  at  va 
rious  places  on  the  route,  to  respond  to  the  greetings  of  the 
crowds  that  had  assembled  at  trie  way  stations. 

On  arriving  at  Indianapolis,  the  party  found  the  city  en 
tirely  devoted  for  the  time  to  the  pleasant  task  of  giving  their 
elected  chief  magistrate  a  fitting  reception.  Business  was 
suspended,  flags  were  floating  everywhere,  and  when,  at  five 
o'clock,  the  train  rolled  into  the  Union  depot,  a  salute  of 
thirty-four  guns  announced  them  and  gave  them  greeting. 
Governor  Morton  addressed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  an  earnest  and 
hearty  speech  of  welcome,  and  then  the  presidential  party 
were  escorted  through  the  principal  streets  by  a  procession 
composed  of  both  houses  of  the  legislature,  the  municipal 
authorities,  and  the  •military  and  firemen.  Arriving  at  the 
Bates  House,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  for,  when  he  appeared, 
and  made  the  following  brief  address : 

"Fellow  citizens  of  the  State  of  Indiana:  I  am  here  to  thank  you  much 
for  this  magnificent  welcome,  and  still  more  for  the  very  generous  support 


256  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

given  by  your  state  to  that  political  cause,  which  I  think  is  the  true  and 
just  cause  of  the  whole  country  and  the  whole  world.  Solomon  says 
'there  is  a  time  to  keep  silence;'  and  when  men  wrangle  by  the  mouth, 
with  no  certainty  that  they  mean  the  same  thing  while  using  the  same 
words,  it  perhaps  were  as  well  if  they  would  keep  silence.  The  words 
'coercion'  and  'invasion'  are  much  used  in  these  days,  and  often  with 
some  temper  and  hot  blood.  Let  us  make  sure,  if  we  can,  that  we  do 
not  misunderstand  the  meaning  of  those  who  use  them.  Let  us  get  the 
exact  definitions  of  these  words,  not  from  dictionaries,  but  from  the  men 
themselves,  who  certainly  deprecate  the  things  they  would  represent  by 
the  use  of  the  words.  What,  then,  is  'coercion?'  What  is  ' invasion  V 
Would  the  marching  of  an  army  into  South  Carolina,  without  the  con 
sent  of  her  people,  and  with  hostile  intent  towards  them,  be  invasion? 
I  certainly  think  it  would,  and  it  would  be  'coercion'  also  if  the  South 
Carolinians  were  forced  to  submit.  But  if  the  United  States  should 
merely  hold  and  retake  its  own  forts  and  other  property,  and  collect  the 
duties  on  foreign  importations,  or  even  withhold  the  mails  from  places 
where  they  were  habitually  violated,  would  any  or  all  of  these  things 
be  'invasion'  or  '  coercion  ?'  Do  our  professed  lovers  of  the  Union, 
who  spitefully  resolve  that  they  will  resist  coercion  and  invasion,  under 
stand  that  such  things  as  these,  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  would 
be  coercion  or  invasion  of  a  state  ?  If  so,  their  idea  of  means  to  pre 
serve  the  object  of  their  great  affection  would  seem  to  be  exceedingly 
thin  and  airy.  If  sick,  the  little  pills  of  the  homceopathist  would  be 
much  too  large  for  it  to  swallow.  In  their  view,  the  Union,  as  a  family 
relation,  would  seem  to  be  no  regular  marriage,  but  rather  a  sort  of 
'free-love'  arrangement,  to  be  maintained  on  passional  attraction.  By 
the  way,  in  what  consists  the  special  sacredness  of  a  state  ?  I  speak 
not  of  the  position  assigned  to  a  state  in  the  Union  by  the  Constitution, 
for  that  is  the  bond  we  all  recognize.  That  position,  however,  a  state 
cannot  carry  out  of  the  Union  with  it.  I  speak  of  that  assumed  prima 
ry  right  of  a  state  to  rule  all  which  is  less  than  itself,  and  to  ruin  all 
which  is  larger  than  itself.  If  a  state  and  a  county,  in  a  given  case, 
should  be  equal  in  extent  of  territory  and  equal  in  number  of  inhabi 
tants,  in  what,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  is  the  state  better  than  the 
county?  Would  an  exchange  of  name  be  an  exchange  of  rights? 
Upon  what  principle,  upon  what  rightful  principle,  may  a  state,  being 
no  more  than  one-fiftieth  part  of  the  nation  in  soil  and  population, 
break  up  the  nation,  and  then  coerce  a  proportion  ably  larger  subdivis 
ion  of  itself  in  the  most  arbitrary  way  ?  What  mysterious  right  to 
play  tyrant  is  conferred  on  a  district  of  country  with  its  people,  by 
merely  calling  it  a  state  ?  Fellow-citizens,  I  am  not  asserting  any  thing. 
I  am  merely  asking  questions  for  you  to  consider.  And  now  allow  me 
to  bid  you  farewell." 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  257 

The  unwillingness  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  speak  on  public  ques 
tions  at  this  time  is  evident  enough  from  these  remarks ;  but 
he  could  not  resist  the  inclination  to  expose  some  of  his  ideas, 
touching  certain  words  which  were  then  in  circulation,  and 
they  undoubtedly  conveyed  hints  concerning  his  policy. 

On  the  following  day,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  started  by 
a  special  train  for  Cincinnati.  An  immense  crowd  assembled, 
and  cheered  them  as  they  moved  off.  The  train  was  composed 
of  four  passenger  cars,  the  third  and  fourth  of  which  were 
occupied  by  the  Cincinnati  committee  of  reception,  who  greeted 
Mr.  Lincoln  at  once — Judge  Este  on  behalf  of  the  citizens, 
and  Major  Dennis  J.  Yoohey  on  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Com 
mon  Council.  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  briefly.  The  first  stop 
was  at  Shelbyville,  where  Mr.  Lincoln  was  obliged  to  show 
himself  to  the  enthusiastic  assemblage,  though,  from  the  brev 
ity  of  the  stop,  he  could  say  nothing.  At  Greensburgh  and 
Lawrenceburgh  Mr.  Lincoln  made  brief  remarks  to  the 
crowds  that  had  assembled.  The  wisest  and  most  character 
istic  thing  that  he  uttered  at  the  latter  place  was  in  these 
words :  "Let  me  tell  you  that  if  the  people  remain  right,  your 
public  men  can  never  betray  you.  If,  in  my  brief  term  of 
office,  I  shall  be  wicked  or  foolish,  if  you  remain  right  and 
true  and  honest  you  cannot  be  betrayed.  My  power  is  tem 
porary  and  fleeting — yours  as  eternal  as  the  principles  of  lib 
erty.  Cultivate  and  protect  that  sentiment,  and  your  ambi 
tious  leaders  will  be  reduced  to  the  position  of  servants." 

The  train  passed  by  the  burial  place  of  General  Harrison 
who  had  occupied  briefly  the  presidential  chair,  and  here  the 
family  of  the  deceased  patriot  were  assembled.  Mr.  Lincoln 
bowed  his  respects  to  the  group  and  to  the  memory  of  his 
predecessor. 

>  The  twelfth  day  of  February  was  remarkably  sunny  and 
cheerful,  and  a  large  concourse  of  citizens  had  assembled  to 
give  Mr.  Lincoln  greeting  and  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  his  face. 
All  the  streets  leading  to  the  railroad  depot  were  thronged 
with  people ;  and  the  windows  and  roofs  and  every  perch  from 
which  a  lookout  could  be  obtained  were  occupied.  It  took  a 
17 


258  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

large  force  of  military  and  police  to  keep  the  way  clear.  A 
distant  cannon  announced  the  approach  of  the  train,  and  then 
there  went  up  from  the  multitude  such  a  cheer  as  such  a  mul 
titude  alone  can  give.  After  some  difficulty  the  party  reached 
their  carriages,  and  then  the  crowd  went  wild  with  enthusi 
asm,  cheering  the  President  and  the  Union,  Mr.  Lincoln  rising? 
in  the  carriage  with  uncovered  head,  and  acknowledging  the 
greetings  that  met  him  at  every  crossing.  Mr.  Lincoln's  car 
riage  was  drawn  by  six  white  horses,  and  was  surrounded  by 
a  detachment  of  police  to  keep  off  the  crowd.  Mayor  Bishop 
occupied  a  seat  by  his  side.  All  along  the  route  of  the  pro 
cession  houses  were  decorated  with  the  national  colors,  and 
various  devices  for  expressing  personal  and  patriotic  feeling,. 
The  Court  House,  Custom  House,  Catholic  Institute,  city 
buildings,  newspaper  offices,  hotels,  <%c.,  were  all  gaily  decor 
ated.  Banners,  transparencies  and  patriotic  emblems  and 
mottoes  were  everywhere.  At  the  Orphan  Asylum,  all  the 
children  came  out  and  sang  "  Hail  Columbia."  Some  inci 
dents  occurred  that  created  special  and  peculiar  interest,  anfl 
some  that  excited  no  little  amusement.  A  brawny  German 
took  a  little  girl  in  his  arms,  and  carried  her  to  the  carriage, 
when  she  modestly  presented  to  the  President  a  single  flow-* 
er,  which  compliment  he  acknowledged  by  stooping  and  kiss^ 
ing  the  child.  It  was  a  small  incident — a  very  pretty  in-* 
cident — but  incidents  like  these  depend  for  their  effect  upon 
the  susceptibilities  of  the  observers ;  and  many  of  the  excited 
multitude  were  touched  to  tears.  One  German  devised  a 
characteristic  compliment.  He  took  a  seat  upon  a  huge  beer 
barrel,  and,  with  a  glass  of  its  contents  in  his  hand,  addressed 
the  President  thus :  "God  be  with  you!  Enforce  the  laws 
and  save  our  country!  Here's  your  health!"  From  the 
depot  to  the  Burnet  House,  he  rode  through  a  dense  mass  of 
men,  women  and  children,  who  took  every  mode  of  expressing 
their  enthusiastic  good  will.  It  would  have  been  impossible 
for  Cincinnati  to  do  more  to  receive  an  emperor  or  reward  a 
conqueror. 

The  Burnet  House  was  reached  at  five  o'clock,  and  soon 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  259 

afterwards  Mr.  Lincoln  appeared  upon  the  balcony.  Mayor 
Bishop  introduced  him  to  the  people  and  gave  him  a  formal 
welcome  "in  the  name  of  the  people  of  all  classes."  Mr. 
Lincoln  then  replied : 

"  Mr.  Mayor,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen :  Twenty-four  hours  ago,  at  the 
Capital  of  Indiana,  I  said  to  myself,  4I  have  never  seen  so  many  people 
assembled  together  in  winter  weather.'  I  am  no  longer  able  to  say  that. 
But  it  is  what  might  reasonably  have  been  expected— that  this  great 
city  of  Cincinnati  would  thus  acquit  herself  on  such  an  occasion.  My 
friends,  I  am  entirely  overwhelmed  by  the  magnificence  of  the  reception 
which  has  been  given,  I  will  not  say  to  me,  but  to  the  President  elect 
of  the  United  States  of  America.  Most  heartily  do  I  thank  you  one 
and  all  for  it.  I  am  reminded  by  the  address  of  your  worthy  Mayor, 
that  this  reception  is  given  not  by  one  political  party;  and  even  if  I  had 
not  been  so  reminded  by  His  Honor,  I  could  not  have  failed  to  know 
the  fact  by  the  extent  of  the  multitude  I  see  before  me  now.  I  could 
not  look  upon  this  vast  assemblage  without  being  made  aware  that  all 
parties  were  united  in  this  reception.  This  is  as  it  should  be.  It  is  as 
it  should  have  been  if  Senator  Douglas  had  been  elected;  it  is  as  it 
should  have  been  if  Mr.  Bell  had  been  elected;  as  it  should  have  been 
if  Mr.  Breckinridge  had  been  elected;  as  it  should  ever  be  when  any 
citizen  of  the  United  States  is  constitutionally  elected  President  of  the 
United  States.  Allow  me  to  say  that  I  think  what  has  occurred  here 
to-day  could  not  have  occurred  in  any  other  country  on  the  face  of  the 
globe,  without  the  influence  of  the  free  institutions  which  we  have  un 
ceasingly  enjoyed  for  three-quarters  of  a  century.  There  is  no  country 
where  the  people  can  turn  out  and  enjoy  this  day  precisely  as  they 
please,  save  under  the  benign  influence  of  the  free  institutions  of  our 
land.  I  hope  that,  although  we  have  some  threatening  national  difficul 
ties  now,  while  these  free  institutions  shall  continue  to  be  in  the  enjoy 
ment  of  millions  of  free  people  of  the  United  States,  we  will  see  re 
peated  every  four  years  what  we  now  witness.  In  a  few  short  years  I 
and  every  other  individual  man  who  is  now  living  will  pass  away.  I 
hope  that  cur  national  difficulties  will  also  pass  away,  and  I  hope  we 
shall  see  in  the  streets  of  Cincinnati — good  old  Cincinnati — for  centuries 
to  come,  once  every  four  years,  the  people  give  such  a  reception  as  this 
to  the  constitutionally  elected  President  of  the  whole  United  States. 
I  hope  you  will  all  join  in  that  reception,  and  that  you  shall  also  welcome 
your  brethren  across  the  river  to  participate  in  it.  We  will  welcome 
them  in  every  state  in  the  Union,  no  matter  where  they  are  from.  From 
away  South,  we  shall  extend  to  them  a  cordial  good  will,  when  our  pres- 
cnt  differences  shall  have  been  forgotten  and  blown  to  the  winds  forever. 


260  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"I  have  spoken  but  once  before  this  in  Cincinnati.  That  was  a  year 
previous  to  the  late  presidential  election.  On  that  occasion,  in  a  playful 
manner  but  with  sincere  words,  I  addressed  much  of  what  1  said  to  the 
Kentuckians.  I  gave  my  opinion  that  we  as  republicans  would  ulti 
mately  beat  them  as  democrats,  but  that  they  could  postpone  that  result 
longer  by  nominating  Senator  Douglas  for  the  presidency  than  they 
could  in  any  other  way.  They  did  not  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word 
nominate  Douglas,  and  the  result  has  come  certainly  as  soon  as  I  ex 
pected.  I  also  told  them  how  I  expected  they  would  be  treated  after 
they  should  have  been  beaten;  and  I  now  wish  to  call  or  recall  their 
attention  to  what  I  then  said  upon  that  subject.  1  then  said:  'When 
we  do,  as  we  say,  beat  you,  you  perhaps  will  want  to  know  what  we 
will  do  with  you.  We  mean  to  treat  you  as  near  as  we  possibly  can  as 
Washington,  Jefferson  and  Madison  treated  you.  We  mean  to  leave 
you  alone  and  in  no  way  to  interfere  with  your  institutions,  to  abide  by 
all  and  every  compromise  of  the  Constitution ;  and,  in  a  word,  coming 
back  to  the  original  proposition  to  treat  you  as  far  as  degenerate  men, 
if  we  have  degenerated,  may,  according  to  the  examples  of  those  noble 
fathers  Washington,  Jefferson  and  Madison.  We  mean  to  remember 
that  you  are  as  good  as  we — that  there  is  no  difference  between  us — 
other  than  the  difference  of  circumstances.  We  mean  to  recognize  and 
bear  in  mind  always  that  you  have  as  good  hearts  in  your  bosoms  aa 
other  people,  or  as  good  as  we  claim  to  have,  and  treat  you  accordingly.1 

"Fellow-citizens  of  Kentucky,  Friends,  Brethren:  May  I  call  you 
such?  In  my  new  position  I  see  no  occasion  and  feel  no  inclination  to 
retract  a  word  of  this.  If  it  shall  not  be  made  good,  be  assured  that 
the  fault  shall  not  be  mine." 

This  little  speech,  remarkable  for  nothing  so  much  as  its 
thoroughly  friendly  feeling  toward  all  classes  and  men  of  all 
opinions,  was  received  with  warm  approval.  Subsequently 
he  was  called  upon  by  a  procession  of  two  thousand  Germans, 
who,  in  their  formal  address,  indicated  a  desire  for  some  utter 
ance  touching  his  public  policy.  In  his  response,  Mr.  Lincoln 
begged  to  be  excused  from  entering  upon  such  an  exposition.* 
"I  deem  it  due  to  myself  and  the  whoje  country,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "in  the  present  extraordinary  condition  of  the  country 
and  of  public  opinion,  that  I  should  wait  and  see  the  last  de 
velopment  of  public  opinion  before  I  give  my  views,  or  ex 
press  myself  at  the  time  of  the  inauguration.  I  hope  at  that 
time  to  be  false  to  nothing  you  have  been  taught  to  expect  of 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  261 

On  the  morning  of  the  thirteenth,  the  party  started  for 
Columbus,  the  capital  of  Ohio.  The  scenes  of  the  previous 
day  were  repeated  on  the  route,  in  the  gathering  of  large 
crowds  at  all  the  intermediate  stations.  The  reception  in  Co 
lumbus  had  been  a  fortnight  in  preparation,  the  legislature 
taking  the  initiative.  At  noon,  on  the  thirteenth,  it  was  cal 
culated  that  five  thousand  strangers  were  in  the  city.  As  the 
time  approached  for  the  arrival  of  the  train,  the  crowd  around 
the  depot  became  almost  overwhelming.  A  thirty-four-gun 
salute  announced  the  coming  train,  and  as  it  drove  slowly  into 
the  depot,  the  crowd  called  upon  the  President  elect  to  show 
himself.  He  stepped  out  upon  the  platform  of  the  rear  car, 
and  with  head  uncovered  bowed  his  acknowledgments  to  the 
hearty  greeting  he  received.  On  alighting  and  entering  a 
carriage  for  the  passage  to  the  State  House,  the  scenes  at 
Cincinnati  were  re-enacted.  Streets  were  full  of  people,  the 
air  was  ringing  with  shouts  and  huzzas,  and  the  same  kind 
sun  smiled  upon  all.  He  was  received  in  the  hall  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  Governor  Dennison  introduced 
him  to  the  Legislature.  The  President  of  the  Senate  responded 
in  a  speech  of  welcome  which  so  concisely  and  happily  con 
veyed  the  feelings  of  the  people  at  that  time,  and  so  justly 
measured  the  nature  and  importance  of  the  crisis,  that  it  de 
serves  record.  He  addressed  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  following 
words : 

"  Sir :  On  this  day,  and  probably  this  very  hour,  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  will  declare  the  verdict  of  the  people,  making  you 
their  President.  It  is  my  pleasurable  duty,  in  behalf  of  the  people  of 
Ohio,  speaking  through  this  General  Assembly,  to  welcome  you  to  their 
Capital.  Never  in  the  history  of  this  Government  has  such  fearful  re 
sponsibility  rested  upon  the  Chief  Executive  of  the  nation  as  will  now 
devolve  upon  you.  Never  since  the  memorable  time  our  patriotic  fa 
thers  gave  existence  to  the  American  Republic,  have  the  people  looked 
with  such  intensity  of  feeling  to  the  inauguration  and  future  policy  of 
a  President,  as  they  do  to  yours.  I  need  not  assure  you  that  the  people 
of  Ohio  have  full  confidence  in  your  ability  and  patriotism,  and  will  re 
spond  to  you  in  their  loyalty  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution.  It 
would  seem,  sir,  that  the  great  problem  of  self-government  is  to  be 
solved  under  your  administration.  All  nations  are  deeply  interested  in 


262  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

its  solution,  and  they  wait  with  breathless  anxiety  to  know  whether 
this  form  of  government,  which  has  been  the  admiration  of  the  world, 
is  to  be  a  failure  or  not.  It  is  the  earnest  and  united  prayer  of  our 
people,  that  the  same  kind  Providence  which  protected  us  in  our  colonial 
struggles,  and  has  attended  us  thus  far  in  our  prosperity  and  greatness, 
will  so  imbue  your  mind  with  wisdom,  that  you  may  dispel  the  dark 
clouds  that  hang  over  our  political  horizon,  and  thereby  secure  the  re 
turn  of  harmony  and  fraternal  feeling  to  our  now  distracted  and  un 
happy  country.  Again  I  bid  you  a  cordial  welcome  to  our  Capital." 

To  this  noble  greeting  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  as  follows : 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  Citizens  of  Ohio :  It  is  true,  as  has 
been  said  by  the  President  of  the  Senate,  that  very  great  responsibility 
rests  upon  me  in  the  position  to  which  the  votes  of  the  American  people 
have  called  me.  I  am  deeply  sensible  of  that  weighty  responsibility. 
I  cannot  but  know,  what  you  all  know,  that  without  a  name — perhaps 
without  a  reason  why  I  should  have  a  name — there  has  fallen  upon  me 
a  task  such  as  did  not  rest  upon  the  Father  of  his  Country.  And  so 
feeling  I  cannot  but  turn  and  look  for  the  support  without  which  it  will 
be  impossible  for  me  to  perform  that  great  task.  I  turn,  then,  and  look 
to  the  American  people,  and  to  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken  them. 

"  Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  interest  felt  in  relation  to  the  policy 
of  the  new  administration.  In  this  I  have  received  from  some  a  degree 
of  credit  for  having  kept  silence,  from  others  some  depreciation.  I  still 
think  I  was  right.  In  the  varying  and  repeatedly  shifting  scenes  of  the 
present,  without  a  precedent  which  could  enable  me  to  judge  from  the 
past,  it  has  seemed  fitting  that  before  speaking  upon  the  difficulties  of 
the  country  I  should  have  gained  a  view  of  the  whole  field.  To  be 
sure,  after  all,  I  would  be  at  liberty  to  modify  and  change  the  course  of 
policy,  as  future  events  might  make  a  change  necessary. 

"  I  havQ  not  maintained  silence  from  any  want  of  real  anxiety.  It  is 
a  good  thing  that  there  is  no  more  than  anxiety,  for  there  is  nothing 
going  wrong.  It  is  a  consoling  circumstance  that  when  we  look  out 
there  is  nothing  that  really  hurts  anybody.  We  entertain  different 
views  upon  political  questions,  but  nobody  is  suffering  anything.  This 
is  a  most  consoling  circumstance,  and  from  it  I  judge  that  all  we  want 
is  time  and  patience,  and  a  reliance  on  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken 
this  people." 

The  reporter  for  the  Ohio  State  Journal,  describing  the  in 
cidents  of  the  day,  says  that  the  impression  produced  by  the 
President  elect  was  most  agreeable.  "His  great  hight,"  he 
continues,  "was  conspicuous,  even  in  that  crowd  of  goodly 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  263 

men,  and  lifted  him  fully  in  view  as  he  walked  up  the  aisle* 
"When  he  took  the  speaker's  stand,  a  better  opportunity  was 
afforded  to  look  at  the  man  upon  whom  more  hopes  hang  than 
upon  any  other  living.  At  first,  the  kindness  and  amiability 
of  his  face  strikes  you;  but  as  he  speaks,  the  greatness  and 
determination  of  his  nature  are  apparent.  Something  in  his 
manner,  even  more  than  in  his  words,  told  how  deeply  he  was 
affected  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people ;  and  when  he  ap 
pealed  to  them  for  encouragement  and  support,  every  heart 
responded  with  mute  assurance  of  both.  There  was  the  sim- 
.plicity  of  greatness  in  his  unassuming  and  confiding  manner, 
that  won  its  way  to  instant  admiration.  He  looked  somewhat 
worn  with  travel  and  the  fatigues  of  popularity,  but  warmed 
to  the  cordiality  of  his  reception." 

*  After  the  conclusion  of  the  formalities  in  the  hall,  Mr,  Lin 
coln  went  to  the  western  steps  of  the  Capitol,  to  say  a  word 
to  the  people.  The  address  he  made  here  consisted  simply 
of  commonplaces  and  phrases  that  had  already  become  hack 
neyed.  The  hand-shaking  that  succeeded  was  something 
fearful.  Every  man  in  the  crowd  was  anxious  to  wrench  the 
hand  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  finally  gave  both  hands  to 
the  work,  with  great  good  nature.  To  quote  one  of  the  re 
ports  of  the  occasion :  "  people  plunged  at  his  arms  with  frantic 
enthusiasm,  and  all  the  infinite  variety  of  shakes,  from  the  wild 
and  irrepressible  pump-handle  movement,  to  the  dead  grip,  was 
executed  upon  the  devoted  dexter  and  sinister  of  the  President* 
Some  glanced  at  his  face  as  they  grasped  his  hand ;  others  in 
voked  the  blessings  of  Heaven  upon  him ;  others  affectionately 
gave  him  their  last  gasping  assurance  of  devotion;  others, 
bewildered  and  furious,  with  hats  crushed  over  their  eyes, 
seized  his  hands  in  a  convulsive  grasp,  and  passed  on  as 
if  they  had  not  the  remotest  idea  who,  what,  or  where  they 
were."  The  President  at  last  escaped,  and  took  refuge  in  the 
Governor's  residence,  although  he  held  a  levee  at  the  State 
House  in  the  evening,  where,  in  a  more  quiet  way,  he  met 
many  prominent  citizens. 

On  the  fourteenth,  the  presidential  party  left  Columbus,  for 


264  LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Pittsburgh.  The  morning  was  rainy,  but  large  numbers  wit 
nessed  the  departure  of  the  train,  and  assembled  at  the  sta 
tions  along  the  route.  At  Steubenville,  about  five  thousand 
people  had  assembled,  and  these  Mr.  Lincoln  briefly  addressed. 
The  rain  interfered  very  materially  with  the  proposed  recep 
tion  at  Pittsburgh,  as  did  also  the  darkness,  for  it  was  night 
when  the  party  arrived.  At  the  Monongahela  House,  Mr. 
Lincoln  addressed  a  large  concourse  of  people  in  a  few 
words  of  acknowledgment,  and  deferred  his  more  formal  re 
marks  until  the  morning  of  the  fifteenth.  These  latter  were 
not  charged  with  particular  interest.  They  were  rather  an 
apology  for  not  speaking  at  all,  upon  the  great  subject  of 
which  all  wished  to  hear,  than  any  exposition  of  opinion  or 
policy  upon  any  subject.  A  single  paragraph  showed  that  he 
still  deemed  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  national  difficulties 
possible : 

"Notwithstanding  the  troubles  across  the  river,  there  is  really  no  crisis 
springing  from  anything  in  the  Government  itself.  In  plain  words, 
there  is  really  no  crisis  except  an  artificial  one.  What  is  there  now  to 
warrant  the  condition  of  affairs  presented  by  our  friends  '  over  the  riv- 
ej?'  Take  even  their  own  view  of  the  questions  involved,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  justify  the  course  which  they  are  pursuing.  I  repeat  it, 
then,  there  is  no  crisis,  except  such  a  one  as  may  be  gotten  up  at  any 
time  by  turbulent  men,  aided  by  designing  politicians.  My  advice, 
then,  under  such  circumstances,  is  to  keep  cool.  If  the  great  American 
people  will  only  keep  their  temper  on  both  sides  of  the  line,  the  trouble 
will  come  to  an  end,  and  the  question  which  now  distracts  the  country 
will  be  settled  just  as  surely  as  all  other  difficulties  of  like  character 
which  have  originated  in  this  Government  have  been  adjusted.  Let  the 
people  on  both  sides  keep  their  self-possession,  and  just  as  other  clouds 
have  cleared  away  in  due  time,  so  will  this,  and  this  great  nation  shall 
continue  to  prosper  as  heretofore." 

The  next  place  at  which  he  was  to  be  received  was  Cleve 
land,  Ohio ;  and  the  party  set  out  for  this  beautiful  city  in  a 
hard  shower  of  rain,  that  had  not  the  power  to  dampen  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  Pittsburgh  people  who  cheered  their  de 
parting  guests  with  great  heartiness.  There  were  the  usual 
incidents  along  the  road,  and  at  four  o'clock  the  train  arrive^ 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  265 

at  the  Euclid  Street  Station  of  the  Cleveland  and  Pittsburgh 
Railroad,  where  a  very  large  escort  waited  to  conduct  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  the  Weddell  House.  The  President  took  his  seat 
in  a  carriage  drawn  by  four  white  horses.  Notwithstanding 
the  unpleasantness  of  the  weather,  Euclid  Street  was  crowded 
from  one  end  to  the  other,  with  persons  who  acted  almost  like 
wild  men,  in  their  anxiety  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  President. 
Mr.  I.  U.  Masters,  the  President  of  the  City  Council,  made  a 
formal  speech  of  welcome,  and  was  followed  by  Hon.  Sherlock 
G.  Andrews,  who  welcomed  the  guest  of  the  occasion  on  be 
half  of  the  citizens'  committee.  Here,  in  his  response,  Mr. 
Lincoln  repeated  the  substance  of  the  remarks  he  made  at 
Pittsburgh  about  the  artificial  nature  of  the  crisis  that  was 

O 

upon  the  country.  "It  was  not  argued  up,"  he  said,  "and 
cannot,  therefore,  be  argued  down.  Let  it  alone  and  it  will 
go  down  of  itself."  In  these  remarks,  and  in  all  like  these, 
he  must  have  taken  counsel  of  his  hopes  rather  than -his  con 
victions  ;  for  in  the  same  speech,  while  alluding  to  the  grate 
ful  fact  that  his  reception  was  by  the  citizens  generally,  with 
out  distinction  of  party,  he  said :  "If  all  don't  join  now  to  save 
the  good  old  ship  of  the  Union  this  voyage,  nobody  will  have 
a  chance  to  pilot  her  on  another  voyage."  There  was  a  gen 
eral  reception  and  hand-shaking  in  the  evening,  and  after  the 
distinguished  guest  had  become  too  tired  for  further  honors. 

O  O  * 

he  was  permitted  to  retire  for  the  night. 

Early  the  next  morning  the  party  took  their  leave,  but  they 
found  many  up  and  ready  to  get  a  parting  glance  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  who,  taking  his  seat  in  the  rear  car,  appeared  upon 
the  platform  as  the  train  moved  out  of  the  depot,  and  bowed 
his  farewell  to  the  people  who  had  so  generously  and  cordially 
received  him.  His  next  public  reception  was  at  Buffalo, 
where  he  arrived  late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  sixteenth,  having 
received  all  along  the  route  those  testimonials  of  interest  which 
had  come  to  be  as  wearisome  at  last,  as  they  were  grateful  at 
the  first.  On  the  arrival  of  the  train  at  Buffalo,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  met  by  a  very  large  concourse  of  citizens,  with  Ex-Presi 
dent  Filhnore  at  their  head.  After  being  conducted  to  his 


266  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

hotel,  the  acting  mayor  gave  him  a  formal  welcome,  to  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  responded  with  hearty  thanks,  and  such  phrases 
of  apology  for  not  saying  anything  as  had  already  become 
threadbare,  and  with  his  often  repeated  promise  to  say  what 
the  people  wished  to  hear,  when  he  should  be  called  upon  to 
do  it  officially. 

From  Buffalo,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  proceeded  to  Al 
bany,  receiving  many  demonstrations  of  respect  from  the 
beautiful  cities  along  the  route  of  three  hundred  miles.  At 
Albany  he  was  welcomed  by  Governor  Morgan,  to  whom  he 
tnade  a  brief  response ;  and  then  he  was  conducted  into  the 
presence  of  the  legislature,  where  he  had  another  formal  re 
ception.  To  the  speech  addressed  to  him  here,  he  made  an 
rJnusually  graceful  and  feeling  response.  He  said : 

"It  is  with  feelings  of  great  diffidence,  and,  I  may  say,  feelings  even 
l)f  awe,  perhaps  greater  than  I  have  recently  experienced,  that  1  meet 
you  here  in  this  place.  The  history  of  this  great  state,  the  renown  of 
its  great  men,  who  have  stood  in  this  chamber,  and  have  spoken  their 
thoughts,  all  crowd  around  my  fancy,  and  incline  me  to  shrink  from  an 
attempt  to  address  you.  Yet  I  have  some  confidence  given  me  by  the 
generous  manner  in  which  you  have  invited  me,  and  the  still  more  gen 
erous  manner  in  which  you  have  received  me.  You  have  invited  me 
and  received  me  without  distinction  of  party.  I  could  not  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  this  has  been  done  in  any  considerable  degree  with  any 
reference  to  my  personal  self.  It  is  very  much  more  grateful  to  me 
that  this  reception  and  the  invitation  preceding  it  were  given  to  me  as 
the  representative  of  a  free  people  than  it  could  possibly  have  been 
were  they  but  the  evidence  of  devotion  to  me  or  to  any  one  man. 

"  It  is  true  that,  while  I  hold  myself,  without  mock-modesty,  the  hum 
blest  of  all  the  individuals  who  have  ever  been  elected  President  of  the 
United  States,  I  yet  have  a  more  difficult  task  to  perform  than  any  one 
of  them  has  ever  encountered.  You  have  here  generously  tendered  me 
the  support,  the  united  support,  of  the  great  Empire  State.  For  this, 
in  behalf  of  the  nation — in  behalf  of  the  present  and  of  the  future  of 
the  nation — in  behalf  of  the  cause  of  civil  liberty  in  all  time  to  come — 
I  most  gratefully  thank  you.  I  do  not  propose  now  to  enter  upon  any 
expressions  as  to  the  particular  line  of  policy  to  be  adopted  with  refer 
ence  to  the  difficulties  that  stand  before  us,  in  the  opening  of  the  incom 
ing  administration.  I  deem  that  it  is  just  to  the  country,  to  myself,  to 
you,  that  I  should  see  everything,  hear  everything,  and  have  every  light 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  267 

that  can  possibly  be  brought  within  my  reach  to  aid  me  before  I  shall 
speak  officially,  in  order  that,  when  I  do  speak,  I  may  have  the  best 
possible  means  of  taking  correct  and  true  grounds.  For  this  reason,  I 
do  not  now  announce  anything  in  the  way  of  policy  for  the  new  admin 
istration.  When  the  time  comes,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  gov 
ernment,  I  shall  speak,  and  speak  as  well  as  I  am  able  for  the  good  of 
the  present  and  of  the  future  of  this  country — for  the  good  of  the  North 
and  of  the  South — for  the  good  of  one  and  of  the  other,  and  of  all  sec- 
tions  of  it.  In  the  meantime,  if  we  have  patience,  if  we  maintain  our 
equanimity,  though  some  may  allow  themselves  to  run  off  in  a  burst  of 
passion,  I  still  have  confidence  that  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  the  universe, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  this  great  and  intelligent  people,  can 
and  will  bring  us  through  this  difficulty,  as  he  has  heretofore  brought 
us  through  all  preceding  difficulties  of  the  country.  Relying  upon  this, 
and  again  thanking  you,  as  I  forever  shall,  in  my  heart,  for  this  gener 
ous  reception  you  have  given  me,  I  bid  you  farewell.'* 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  met  at  Albany  by  a  delegation  of  the  city 
government  of  New  York,  and  started  on  the  nineteenth  for 
the  great  metropolis.  He  was  not  permitted  to  pass  by 
Poughkeepsie  without  a  formal  welcome  from  the  mayor  of 
that  city,  to  which  he  made  a  formal  response.  In  this  little 
speech  there  is  a  manifest  improvement  upon  the  earlier  eiforts 
of  the  route.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  found  that  there  were  things 
to  talk  about  besides  policy,  and  that  it  was  better  to  yield 
himself  up  to  the  impulse  of  the  moment  than  to  be  under 
the  constant  fear  of  saying  some  imprudent  thing,  concerning 
the  character  of  the  crisis  and  the  policy  of  the  incoming  ad 
ministration. 

The  reception  at  the  .city  of  New  York  was  such  as  only 
New  York  can  give.  Places  of  business  were  generally  closed, 
and  the  streets  presented  such  crowds  as  only  a  city  number 
ing  a  million  of  people  can  produce.  Here  he  was  formally 
received  by  Fernando  Wood,  then  mayor  of  the  city,  to  whose 
welcome  he  made  the  following  response : 

"Mr.  Mayor: — It  is  with  feelings  of  deep  gratitude  that  I  make  my 
acknowledgments  for  the  reception  given  me  in  the  great  commercial 
city  of  New  York.  I  cannot  but  remember  that  this  is  done  by  a  peo 
ple  who  do  not,  by  a  majority,  agree  with  me  in  political  sentiment.  It 
is  the  more  grateful,  because  in  this  I  see  that,  for  the  great  principles 


268  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

of  our  Government,  the  people  are  almost  unanimous.  In  regard  to 
the  difficulties  that  confront  us  at  this  time,  and  of  which  your  Honor 
has  thought  fit  to  speak  so  becomingly  and  so  justly,  as  I  suppose,  I 
can  only  say  that  I  agree  in  the  sentiments  expressed.  In  my  devotion 
to  the  Union,  I  hope  I  am  behind  no  man  in  the  nation.  In  the  wisdom 
with  which  to  conduct  the  affairs  tending  to  the  preservation  of  the 
Union,  I  fear  that  too  great  confidence  may  have  been  reposed  in  me ; 
but  I  am  sure  that  I  bring  a  heart  devoted  to  the  work.  There  is  noth 
ing  that  could  ever  bring  me  to  willingly  consent  to  the  destruction  of 
this  Union,  under  which  not  only  the  great  commercial  city  of  New 
York,  but  the  whole  country,  acquired  its  greatness,  except  it  be  the 
purpose  for  which  the  Union  itself  was  formed.  I  understand  the  ship 
to  be  made  for  the  carrying  £nd  the  preservation  of  the  cargo,  and  so 
long  as  the  ship  can  be  saved  with  the  cargo,  it  should  never  be  aban 
doned,  unless  there  appears  no  possibility  of  its  preservation,  and  it 
must  cease  to  exist,  except  at  the  risk  of  throwing  overboard  both 
freight  and  passengers.  So  long,  then,  as  it  is  possible  that  the  pros 
perity  and  the  liberties  of  the  people  be  preserved  in  this  Union,  it  shall 
be  my  purpose  at  all  times  to  use  all  iny  powers  to  aid  in  its  perpetua 
tion." 

On  the  twentieth,  Mr.  Lincoln  left  New  York  for  Philadel 
phia,  visiting  on  the  way  both  Houses  of  the  New  Jersey  Leg 
islature  at  Trenton.  From  the  speech  made  before  the  Senate 
on  this  occasion,  a  quotation  has  been  made  in  this  volume, 
and  the  entire  passage  is  worthy  of  record: 

"I  cannot  but  remember  the  place  that  New  Jersey  holds  in  our  early 
history.  In  the  early  Revolutionary  struggle,  few  of  the  states  among 
the  old  thirteen  had  more  of  the  battle-fields  of  the  country  within  its 
limits  than  old  New  Jersey.  May  I  be  pardoned,  if,  upon  this  occasion, 
I  mention,  that  away  back  in  my  childhood,  the  earliest  days  of  my  be 
ing  able  to  read,  I  got  hold  of  a  small  book,  such  a  one  as  few  of  the 
younger  members  have  ever  seen,  'Weems'  Life  of  Washington.'  I 
remember  all  the  accounts  there  given  of  the  battle-fields  and  struggles 
for  the  liberties  of  the  country,  and  none  fixed  themselves  upon  my  im 
agination  so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The 
crossing  of  the  river — the  contest  with  the  Hessians — the  great  hard 
ships  endured  at  that  time — all  fixed  themselves  on  my  memory  more 
than  any  single  revolutionary  event;  and  you  all  know,  for  you  have  all 
been  boys,  how  these  early  impressions  last  longer  than  any  others.  I 
recollect  thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was,  that  there  must  have 
been  something  more  than  common  that  those  men  struggled  for.  I 
am  exceedingly  anxious  that  that  thing  which  they  struggled  for— that 
I 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  269 

something  even  more  than  National  Independence — that  something  that 
held  out  a  great  promise  to  all  the  people  of  the  world  to  all  time  to 
come — 1  am  exceedingly  anxious  that  this  Union,  the  Constitution,  and 
the  liberties  of  the  people,  shall  be  perpetuated  in  accordance  with  the 
original  idea  for  -which  that  struggle  was  made,  and  I  shall  be  most 
happy  indeed  if  I  shall  be  an  humble  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
Almighty,  and  of  this,  his  almost  chosen  people,  for  perpetuating  the 
object  of  that  great  struggle." 

At  Philadelphia  Mr.  Lincoln  was  received  with  great  en 
thusiasm,  and  many  demonstrations  of  popular  regard.  His 
formal  welcome  was  given  by  the  mayor  of  the  city,  but  there 
was  nothing  in  his  response  that  calls  for  reproduction,  except 
a  single  passage  in  which  he  hints  at  the  possibility  that  he 
may  never  be  permitted  to  take  the  presidential  chair.  Al 
luding  to  the  popular  desire  to  learn  something  definite  con 
cerning  his  policy,  he  said,  "  It  were  useless  for  me  to  speak 
of  details  of  plans  now ;  I  shall  speak  officially  next  Monday 
week,  if  ever.  If  I  should  not  speak  then,  it  were  useless  for 
me  to  do  so  now." 

He  had  been  aware,  ever  since  he  left  Springfield,  that  men 
were  seeking  for  his  life.  An  attempt  was  made  to  throw  the 
train  off  the  track  that  bore  him  out  of  Springfield ;  and  at 
Cincinnati  a  hand  grenade  was  found  concealed  upon  the  train. 
The  fear  excited  by  these  hostile  demonstrations  was  an  in 
definite  one,  but  on  his  arrival  at  Philadelphia  the  plot  was  all 
unfolded  to  him.  * 

Before  Mr.  Lincoln*  left  home  it  was  whispered  about  that 
he  would  never  be  permitted  to  pass  through  Baltimore  alive ; 
and  a  detective  of  great  experience  and  skill  was  put  to  the 
task  of  ferreting  out  the  conspiracy.  He  employed  both  men 
and  women  to  assist  him,  and  found  that  a  conspiracy  was  in 
deed  in  existence,  with  an  Italian  refugee,  a  barber,  at  the 
head  of  it,  who,  assuming  the  name  of  uOrsini,"  indicated 
the  part  he  expected  to  play  in  the  plot.* 

It  was  arranged,  in  case  Mr.  Lincoln  should  reach  Balti 
more  safely,  that,  on  a  given  signal,  he  should  be  shot  by  those 

*  For  all  the  particulars  of  this  attempt  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's-  life  the 
author  is  indebted  to  an  article  in  the  Albany  Evening  Journal. 


270  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

who  should  gather  in  the  guise  of  friends  around  his  carriage, 
and  that  hand  grenades  should  complete  the  work  of  destruc 
tion  which  the  pistol  had  commenced.  In  the  confusion  thus 
produced,  the  guilty  parties  proposed  to  escape  to  a  vessel  in 
waiting,  which  would  convey  them  to  Mobile. 

The  detective  and  Mr.  Lincoln  reached  Philadelphia  nearly 
at  the  same  time,  and  there  the  former  submitted  to  a  few  of 
the  President's  friends  the  information  he  had  secured.  An 
interview  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  detective  was  immedi 
ately  arranged,  which  took  place  in  the  apartments  of  the 
former  at  the  Continental  Hotel.  Mr.  Lincoln  having  heard 
the  officer's  statement  in  detail,  then  informed  him  that  he  had 
promised  to  raise  the  American  flag  on  Independence  Hall  the 
following  morning — the  morning  of  the  anniversary  of  Wash 
ington's  birthday — and  that  he  had  accepted  an  invitation  to 
a  reception  by  the  Pennsylvania  legislature  in  the  afternoon 
of  the  same  day.  "Both  of  these  engagements  I  will  keep," 
said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  if  it  costs  me  my  life."  For  the  rest,  he 
authorized  the  detective  to  make  such  arrangements  as  he 
thought  proper  for  his  safe  conduct  to  Washington. 

In  the  meantime,  General  Scott  and  Senator  Seward,  both 
of  whom  were  in  Washington,  learned  from  independent 
sources  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  life  was  in  danger,  and  concurred 
in  sending  Mr.  Frederick  W.  Seward  to  Philadelphia,  to  urge 
upon  him  the  necessity  of  proceeding  immediately  to  Wash 
ington  in  a  quiet  way.  The  messenger  arrived  late  on  Thurs 
day  night,  after  Mr.  Lincoln  had  retired,  and  requested  an 
audience.  Mr.  Lincoln's  fears  had  already  been  aroused,  and 
he  was  cautious,  of  course,  in  the  matter  of  receiving  a  stran 
ger.  But  satisfied  that  the  messenger  was  indeed  the  son  of 
Mr.  Seward,  he  gave  him  audience.  Nothing  needed  to  be 
done,  but  to  inform  him  of  the  plan  entered  into  with  the  de 
tective  by  which  the  President  was  to  arrive  in  Washington 
early  on  Saturday  morning,  in  advance  of  his  family  and  party. 
This  information  was  conveyed  to  Mr.  Washburne  of  Illinois* 
among. others,  on  Mr.  Se ward's  return  to  Washington;  and  he 
was  deputed  to  receive  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  depot  on  his  arrival. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  271 

Sucli  were  the  exciting  events  and  disclosures  of  the  day 
and  night  preceding  Mr.  Lincoln's  appearance  at  Independ 
ence  Hall,  where  he  was  formally  received,  and  where  he 
made  the  following  address,  one  passage  of  which  bears  the 
burden  of  his  apprehension: 

"I  am  filled  with  deep  emotion  at  finding  myself  standing  here,  in 
this  place,  where  were  collected  the  wisdom,  the  patriotism,  the  devo 
tion  to  principle,  from  which  sprang  the  institutions  under  which  we 
live.  You  have  kindly  suggested  to  me  that  in  my  hands  is  the  task  of 
restoring  peace  to  the  present  distracted  condition  of  the  country.  I 
can  say  in  return,  sir,  that  all  the  political  sentiments  I  entertain  have 
been  drawn,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  draw  them,  from  the  senti 
ments  which  originated  and  were  given  to  the  world  from  this  hall.  I 
have  never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not  spring  from  the  senti 
ments  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  I  have  often 
pondered  over  the  dangers  which  were  incurred  by  the  men  who  assem 
bled  here,  and  framed  and  adopted  that  Declaration  of  Independence. 
I  have  pondered  over  the  toils  that  were  endured  by  the  officers  and 
soldiers  of  the  arinv;  who  achieved  that  independence.  I  have  often  in 
quired  of  myself  what  great  principle  or  idea  it  was  that  kept  this 
Confederacy  so  long  together.  It  was  not  the  mere  matter  of  the  sep 
aration  of  the  colonies  from  the  mother-land,  but  that  sentiment  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave  liberty,  not  alone  to  the  people 
of  this  country,  but,  I  hope,  to  the  world  for  all  future  time.  It  was 
that  which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time  the  weight  would  be  lifted 
from  the  shoulders  of  all  men.  This  is  a  sentiment  embodied  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Now,  my  friends,  can  this  country  be 
saved  upon  this  basis  ?  If  it  can,  I  will  consider  myself  one  of  the  hap 
piest  men  in  the  world  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  If  it  cannot  be  saved 
upon  that  principle,  it  will  be  truly  awful.  But  if  this  country  cannot 
be  saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would 
rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  surrender  it.  Now,  in  my  view 
of  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  war. 
There  is  no  necessity  for  it.  I  am  not  in  favor  of  such  a  course ;  and  I 
may  say,  in  advance,  that  there  will  be  no  bloodshed  unless  it  be  forced 
upon  the  Government,  and  then  it  will  be  compelled  to  act  in  self-de 
fense." 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  speech,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  conducted 
to  a  platform  outside,  where  he  was  publicly  invited  to  raise 
the  new  flag.  In  responding  to  this  invitation,  he  addressed 
a  few  words  to  the  people,  and  then  ran  the  flag  up  to  the  top 


272  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

of  the  staff,  amid  the  cheers  of  a  vast  concourse  of  people. 
The  ceremony  was  alike  impressive  to  the  principal  actor  and 
the  multitude  of  observers.  The  great  battles  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  life  had  been  done  for  the  principles  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  It  was  because  he  represented  those  princi 
ples,  distinctively,  that  he  had  been  elected  to  the  presidency, 
that  the  slave-power  was  in  active  revolt,  and  that  the  friends 
of  slavery  were  seeking  for  his  life.  It  was  certainly  a  re 
markable  occasion  when  he  stood  within  the  room  where  the 
Declaration  was  framed  and  signed,  and  pledged  himself  anew 
to  its  truths  and  principles,  and  then  walked  out  into  the  pres 
ence  of  the  people  and  ran  up  to  its  home  the  beautiful  na 
tional  ensign  prepared  fur  his  hands. 

At  the  conclusion  of  these  ceremonies,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his 
party  left  the  city  for  Harrisburg,  the  capital  of  the  state, 
where,  in  accordance  with  his  promise,  he  visited  both  branches 
of  the  Pennsylvania  legislature.  The  following  were  the  more 
important  passages  in  his  response  to  the  address  of  welcome : 

"I  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  this  reception,  and  the  generous  words 
in  which  support  has  been  promised  me  upon  this  occasion.  I  thank 
your  great  Commonwealth  for  the  overwhelming  support  it  recently 
gave,  not  to  me  personally,  but  the  cause,  which  I  think  a  just  one,  in 
the  late  election.  Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  fact — the  interesting 
fact,  perhaps  we  should  say — that  I,  for  the  first  tune,  appear  at  the 
capital  of  the  great  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  upon  the  birthday 
of  the  Father  of  his  Country,  in  connection  with  that  beloved  annivei?- 
eary  connected  with  the  history  of  this  country.  I  have  already  gone 
through  one  exceedingly  interesting  scene  this  morning  in  the  ceremo 
nies  at  Philadelphia.  Under  the  high  conduct  of  gentlemen  there,  I 
was,  for  the  first  time,  allowed  the  privilege  of  standing  in  Old  Inde 
pendence  Hall,  to  have  a  few  words  addressed  to  me  there,  and  opening 
up  an  opportunity  of  saying,  with  much  regret,  that  I  had  not  more 
time  to  express  something  of  my  own  feelings,  excited  by  the  occasion — 
somewhat  to  harmonize  and  give  shape  to  the  feelings  that  had  been 
really  the  feelings  of  my  whole  life. 

"  Besides  this,  our  friends  there  had  provided  a  magnificent  flag  of 
the  country.  They  had  arranged  it  so  that  I  was  given  the  honor  of 
raising  it  to  the  head  of  its  staff.  And  when  it  went  up  I  was  pleased 
*hat  it  went  to  its  place  by  the  strength  of  my  own  feeble  arm ;  when, 
According  io  the  arrangement,  the  cord  was  pulled,  and  it  flaunted 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  273 

gloriously  to  the  wind  without  an  accident,  in  the  "bright  glowing  sun 
shine  of  the  morning,  I  could  not  help  hoping  that  there  was  in  the  en 
tire  success  of  that  beautiful  ceremony  at  least  something  of  an  omen 
of  what  is  to  come.  Nor  could  I  help  feeling  then,  as  I  often  have  felt, 
that  in  the  whole  of  that  proceeding  I  was  a  very  humble  instrument.  I 
had  not  provided  the  flag ;  I  had  not  made  the  arrangements  for  eleva 
ting  it  to  its  place.  I  had  applied  but  a  very  small  portion  of  my  feeble 
strength  in  raising  it.  In  the  whole  transaction  I  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  people  who  had  arranged  it ;  and  if  I  can  have  the  same  generous 
co-operation  of  the  people  of  the  nation,  I  think  the  flag  of  our  country 
may  yet  be  kept  flaunting  gloriously. 

"I  recur  for  a  moment  to  some  words  uttered  at  the  hotel  in  regard  to 
what  has  been  said  about  the  military  support  which  the  general  gov 
ernment  may  expect  from  the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  in  a 
proper  emergency.  To  guard  against  any  possible  mistake  do  I  recur 
to  this.  It  is  not  with  any  pleasure  that  I  contemplate  the  possibility 
that  a  necessity  may  arise,  in  this  country  for  the  use  of  the  military 
arm.  While  I  am  exceedingly  gratified  to  see  the  manifestation  upon 
your  streets  of  your  military  force  here,  and  exceedingly  gratified  at 
your  promise  here  to  use  that  force  upon  a  proper  emergency — while  I 
make  these  acknowledgments,  I  desire  to  repeat,  in  order  to  preclude 
any  possible  misconstruction,  that  I  do  most  sincerely  hope  that  we 
shall  have  no  use  for  them;  that  it  will  never  become  their  duty  to  shed 
blood,  and  most  especially  never  to  shed  fraternal  blood.  I  promise 
that,  so  far  as  I  may  have  wisdom  to  direct,  if  so  painful  a  result  shall 
in  any  wise  be  brought  about,  it  shall  be  through  no  fault  of  mine." 

It  is  proper  to  call  renewed  attention  here  to  Mr.  Lincoln's 
strong  and  ever  present  conviction  that  he  was  only  a  humble 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  a  higher  power.  He  recognized 
the  people  as  one  of  the  higher  powers  which  held  him  in 
service,  and  his  illustration  of  his  position,  drawn  from  his 
office  in  raising  the  flag  over  Independence  Hall,  was  ex 
tremely  beautiful.  We  shall  find  this  conviction  deepening 
throughout  the  remainder  of  his  life — the  conviction  that  he 
was  nothing — that  he  was  of  no  consequence — save  as  an  in 
strument,  and  that  he  had  no  rights  and  no  mission  except 
those  which  were  deputed  to  him. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  exercises  of  the  day,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
who  was  known  to  be  very  weary,  was  permitted  to  pass  un 
disturbed  to  his  apartments  in  the  Jones  House.  It  was 
18 


274  LIFE   Or   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLN. 

popularly  understood  that  he  was  to  start  for  "Washington 
the  next  morning;  and  the  people  of  Harrisburg  supposed 
they  had  taken  only  a  temporary  leave  of  him.  He  remained 
in  his  rooms  until  nearly  six  o'clock,  when  he  passed  into  the 
street,  entered  a  carriage  unobserved,  in  company  with  Colonel 
Lamon,  and  was  driven  to  a  special  train  on  the  Pennsylvania 
Eailroad,  in  waiting  for  him.  As  a  measure  of  precaution, 
the  telegraph  wires  were  cut  the  moment  he  left  Harrisburgh, 
so  that,  if  his  departure  should  be  discovered,  intelligence  of 
it  could  not  be  communicated  at  a  distance.  At  half  past 
ten,  the  train  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  and  here  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  met  by  the  detective,  who  had  a  carriage  in  readiness,  in 
which  the  party  were  driven  to  the  depot  of  the  Philadelphia, 
Wilmington  and  Baltimore  Railroad.  At  a  quarter  past  eleven 
they  arrived,  and,  very  fortunately,  found  the  regular  train, 
which  should  have  left  at  eleven,  delayed.  The  party  took 
berths  in  the  sleeping  car,  and,  without  change  of  cars,  passed 
directly  through  Baltimore  to  Washington,  where  Mr.  Lin 
coln  arrived  at  half  past  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
found  Mr.  Washburne  anxiously  awaiting  him.  He  was  taken 
into  a  carriage,  and  in  a  few  minutes  he  was  talking  over  his 
adventures,  with  Senator  Seward  at  Willard's  Hotel. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  family  left  Harrisburgh  on  the  special  train 
that  had  been  intended  for  him,  and  as  news  of  his  safe  arrival 
in  Washington  was  already  telegraphed  over  the  country,  no 
disturbance  was  made  by  the  passage  of  the  party  through 
Baltimore.  It  was  found  that  the  number  of  original  con 
spirators  was  about  twenty,  all  of  whose  names  were  in  pos 
session  of  responsible  parties.  It  was  a  bold  plot,  ingeniously 
foiled ;  but  th,e  detective  through  whose  means  the  President's 
life  had  been  saved,  was  not  considered  safe  in  Washington, 
and  after  a  day  or  two  was  sent  away.  It  should  be  added 
that  the  current  story  that  Mr.  Lincoln  passed  through  Bal 
timore  disguised  in  a  "long  military  cloak  and  Scotch  cap," 
is  a  pure  fabrication,  written  by  a  man  who  hated  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  the  event  of  which  he  wrote. 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  adopt  any  disguise. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  275 

It  is  a*  curious  coincidence  that  Mr.  Seward  and  his  son 
who  both  were  very  active  in  the  discovery  of  this  plot,  and 
in  the  measures  for  'avoiding  its  consequences,  were  the  only 
sharers  in  that  violence  which,  at  a  later  period,  destroyed  Mr. 
Lincoln's  life.  It  is  also  a  very  suggestive  fact,  touching  the 
responsibility  of  the  southern  leaders  for  Mr.  Lincoln's  assas 
sination,  that  when  a  man  of  the  name  of  Byrne  was  arrested 
in  Eichmond  a  year  afterwards,  for  keeping  a  gambling  house 
and  for  disloyalty  to  the  confederate  government,  he  was  re 
leased  on  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Wigfall,  who,  to  prove  the 
man's  truth  to  treason,  swore  that  he  was  captain  of  the  band 
that  plotted  to  assassinate  President  Lincoln  in  Baltimore. 

The  city  of  Washington  was  thrown  into  a  flutter  of  ex 
citement  by  this  unexpected  arrival.  Mr.  Lincoln's  foes — 
and  there  were  multitudes  of  them  in  Washington — ridiculed 
his  fears,  and  his  friends  were  equally  angry  and  ashamed 
that  the  chosen  chief  of  the  nation  should  consent  to  sneak 
into  his  capital ;  but  the  latter,  sooner  or  later,  learned  that  he 
had  taken  the  wiser  course.  It  was,  indeed,  a  very  shameful 
thins;  that  the  President  elect  should  have  been  obliged  to  do 

O  O 

what  he  did,  but  so  long  as  he  was  not  responsible  for  it,  the 
shame  in  no  way  attaches  to  him. 

Mr.  Lincoln  went  immediately  into  free  conferences  with 
his  friends,  visited  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  after  a  day 
he  was  waited  upon  by  the  Mayor  and  the  municipal  author 
ities,  who  gave  him  formal  welcome  to  the  city.  In  his  brief 
reply,  he  took  occasion  to  say  that  he  thought  much  of  the 
ill  feeling  existing  between  those  living  in  free  and  slave  states 
was  owing  to  their  failure  to  understand  one  another,  and  then 
assured  the  Mayor  and  his  party  that  he  did  not  then  enter 
tain,  and  had  never  entertained,  any  other  than  kindly  feelings 
toward  the  South,  that  he  had  no  disposition  to  treat  the  peo 
ple  of  the  South  otherwise  than  as  his  own  neighbors,  and  that 
he  had  no  wish  to  withhold  from  them  any  of  the  benefits  of 
the  Constitution.  On  the  second  evening  after  his  arrival, 
the  Republican  Association  tendered  him  the  courtesy  of  a 
serenade,  which  attracted  a  large  crowd  of  friends  and  curious 


276  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

spectators.  On  being  called  out,  he  made  much  such  an  ad 
dress  as  he  had  already  made  to  the  Mayor,  closing  with  an 
expression  of  the  conviction  that  when  they  should  come  to 
know  each  other  better  they  would  be  better  friends. 

The  days  that  preceded  the  inauguration  were  rapidly 
passing  away.  In  the  meantime,  although  General  Scott  had 
been  busy  and  efficient  in  his  military  preparations  for  the  oc 
casion,  many  were  fearful  that  scenes  of  violence  would  be 
enacted  on  that  day,  even  should  Mr.  Lincoln  be  permitted  to 
escape  assassination  in  the  meantime.  It  was  a  time  of  fearful 
uncertainty.  The  leading  society  of  Washington  hated  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  the  principles  he  represented.  If  it  would  be 
uncharitable  to  say  that  they  would  have  rejoiced  in  his  death, 
it  is  certainly  true  that  they  were  in  perfect  sympathy  with 
those  who  were  plotting  his  destruction.  His  coming  and  re 
maining  would  be  death  to  the  social  dominance  of  slavery  in 
the  national  capital.  This  they  felt ;  and  nothing  would  have 
pleased  them  better  than  a  revolution  which  would  send  Mr. 
Lincoln  back  to  Illinois,  and  install  Jefferson  Davis  in  the 
White  House.  There  was  probably  not  one  man  in  five  in 
Washington  at  the  time  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  the  city  who,  in 
his  heart,  gave  him  welcome.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  his  friends  all  over  the  country  looked  nervously  forward 
to  the  fourth  of  March. 


CHAPTER   XYIII. 

THE  morning  of  the  fourth  of  March  broke  beautifully 
clear,  and  it  found  General  Scott  and  the  Washington  police  in 
readiness  for  the  day.  The  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  had  gath 
ered  in  from  far  and  near,  determined  that  he  should  be  inaugu 
rated.  In  the  hearts  of  the  surging  crowds  there  was  anxiety ; 
but  outside,  all  looked  as  usual  on  such  occasions,  with  the 
single  exception  of  an  extraordinary  display  of  soldiers.  The 
public  buildings,  the  schools  and  most  of  the  places  of  business 
were  closed  during  the  day,  and  the  stars  and  stripes  were 
floating  from  every  flag-staff.  There  was  a  great  desire  to 
hear  Mr.  Lincoln's  inaugural ;  and,  at  an  early  hour,  Pennsyl 
vania  Avenue  was  full  of  people,  wending  their  way  to  the 
east  front  of  the  capitol,  from  which  it  was  to  be  delivered. 

At  five  minutes  before  twelve  o'clock,  Vice-President  Breck- 
inridge  and  Senator  Foote  escorted  Mr.  Hamlin,  the  Vice- 
President  elect,  into  the  Senate  Chamber,  and  gave  him  a  seat 
at  the  left  of.  the  chair.  At  twelve,  Mr.  Breckinridge  an 
nounced  the  Senate  adjourned  without  day,  and  then  con 
ducted  Mr.  Hamlin  to  the  seat  he  had  vacated.  At  this 
moment,  the  foreign  diplomats,  of  whom  there  was  a  very 
large  and  brilliant  representation,  entered  the  chamber,  and 
took  the  seats  assigned  to  them.  At  a  quarter  before  one 
o'clock,  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  entered,  with  the 
venerable  Chief  Justice  Taney  at  their  head,  each  exchanging 
salutes  with  the  new  Vice-President,  as  they  took  their  seats. 
•  At  a  quarter  past  one  o'clock,  an  unusual  stir  and  excitement 


278  LIFE   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

announced  the  coming  of  the  most  important  personage  of  the 
occasion.  It  was  a  relief  to  many  to  know  that  he  was  safely 
within  the  building;  and  those  who  were  assembled  in  the 
hall  regarded  with  the  profoundest  interest  the  entrance  of 
President  Buchanan  and  the  President  elect — the  outgoing 
and  the  incoming  man.  A  procession  was  then  formed  which 
passed  to  the  platform  erected  for  the  ceremonies  of  the  oc 
casion,  in  the  following  order:  Marshal  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  Sergeant-at- 
Arms,  Senate  Committee  of  Arrangements,  President  of  the 
United  States  and  President  elect,  Yice-President,  Clerk  of 
the  Senate,  Senators,  Diplomatic  Corps,  heads  of  departments, 
Governors  of  states,  and  such  others  as  were  in  the  chamber. 
On  arriving  at  the  platform,  Senator  Baker  of  Oregon,  whose 
name  as  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  old  friends  and  political  rivals 
in  Illinois  has  been  frequently  mentioned  in  this  volume,  in 
troduced  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  assembly.  There  was  not  a  very 
hearty  welcome  given  to  the  President,  as  he  stepped  forward 
to  read  his  inaugural.  His  enemies  were  too  many,  and  his 
friends  too  much  in  fear  of  exasperating  them.  The  repre 
sentative  of  American  loyalty  carried  his  burden  alone.  The 
inaugural  was  listened  to  with  profound  attention,  every  pas 
sage  being  vociferously  cheered  which  contained  any  allusion 
to  the  Union,  and  none  listening  more  carefully  than  Mr.  Bu 
chanan  and  Judge  Taney,  the  latter  of  whom,  with  much  ag 
itation,  administered  the  oath  of  office  to  Mr.  Lincoln  when 
his  address  was  concluded. 

Mr.  Lincoln  himself  must  have  wondered  at  the  strange 
conjunction  of  personages  and  events.  The  "Stephen"  of 
his  first  speech  in  the  old  senatorial  campaign  was  a  defeated 
candidate  for  the  presidency  who  then  stood  patriotically  at 
his  side,  holding  the  hat  of  the  republican  President,  which 
he  had  politely  taken  at  the  beginning  of  the  inaugural  ad 
dress;  "James"  had  just  walked  out  of  office  to  make  room 
for  him;  "Franklin"  had  passed  into  comparative  obscurity 
or  something  worse,  and  "Roger"  had  just  administered  to 
him  the  oath  of  office. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  279 

No  thorough  understanding  of  the  moderate  and  concilia 
tory  tone  of  the  inaugural  can  be  acquired  without  a  perusal 
of  the  document  itself.  Its  arguments  were  unanswerable, 
and  its  tone  of  respectful  friendliness  toward  the  South  so 
marked  that  great  pains  were  subsequently  taken  by  the 
southern  press  to  misrepresent  it,  and  to  counteract  its  ef 
fects.  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

" FELLOW-CITIZENS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES: — In  compliance  with  a 
custom  as  old  as  the  government  itself,  I  appear  before  you  to  address 
you  briefly,  and  to  take,  in  your  presence,  the  oath  prescribed  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  to  be  taken  by  the  President  before 
he  enters  on  the  execution  of  his  office. 

"I  do  not  consider  it  necessary,  at  present,  for  me  to  discuss  those 
matters  of  administration  about  which  there  is  no  special  anxiety  or 
excitement.  Apprehension  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of  the 
southern  states,  that,  by  the  accession  of  a  republican  administration, 
their  property  and  their  peace  and  personal  security  are  to  be  endan 
gered  There  has  never  been  any  reasonable  cause  for  such  apprehen 
sion.  Indeed,  the  most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while 
existed,  and  been  open  to  their  inspection.  It  is  found  in  nearly  all  the 
published  speeches  of  him  who  now  addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote 
from  one  of  those  speeches,  when  I  declare  that  'I  have  no  purpose, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the 
states  where  it  exists.'  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so;  and  I 
have  no  inclination  to  do  so.  Those  who  nominated  and  elected  me  did 
so  with  the  full  knowledge  that  I  had  made  this,  and  made  many  similar 
declarations,  and  had  never  recanted  them.  And,  more  than  this,  they 
placed  in  the  platform,  for  my  acceptance,  and  as  a  law  to  themselves 
and  to  me,  the  clear  and  emphatic  resolution  which  I  now  read : 

"  *  Resolve^  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights  of  the  states, 
and  especially  the  right  of  each  state  to  order  and  control  its  own  do 
mestic  institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is  essential 
to  that  balance  of  power  on  which  the  perfection  and  endurance  of  our 
political  fabric  depend;  and  we  denounce  the  lawless  invasion  by  armed 
force  of  the  soil  of  any  state  or  territory,  no  matter  under  what  pretext, 
as  among  the  gravest  of  crimes.' 

"I  now  reiterate  these  sentiments;  and  in  doing  so  I  only  press  upon 
the  public  attention  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  which  the  case  is 
susceptible,  that  the  property,  peace,  and  security  of  no  section  are  to 
be  in  anywise  endangered  by  the  now  incoming  administration. 

**  I  add,  too,  that  all  the  protection  which,  consistently  with  the  Con 
stitution  and  the  laws,  can  be  given,  will  be  cheerfully  given  to  all  the 


280  LIFE   OF  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN. 

states  when  lawfully  demanded,  for  whatever  cause,  as  cheerfully  to  one 
section  as  to  another. 

"  There  is  much  controversy  about  the  delivering  up  of  fugitives  from 
service  or  labor.  The  clause  I  now  read  is  as  plainly  written  in  the 
Constitution  as  any  other  of  its  provisions : 

'"No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state  under  the  laws 
thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regu 
lation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be 
delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may 
be  due.' 

"  It  is  scarcely  questioned  that  this  provision  was  intended  by  those 
who  made  it  for  the  reclaiming  of  what  we  call  fugitive  slaves  5  and  the 
intention  of  the  lawgiver  is  the  law. 

"  All  members  of  Congress  swear  their  support  to  the  whole  Consti 
tution — to  this  provision  as  well  as  any  other.  To  the  proposition,  then, 
that  slaves  whose  cases  come  within  the  terms  of  this  clause  '  shall  be  de 
livered  up,'  their  oaths  are  unanimous.  Now,  if  they  would  make  the 
effort  in  good  temper,  could  they  not,  with  nearly  equal  unanimity,  frame 
and  pass  a  law  by  means  of  which  to  keep  good  that  unanimous  oath? 

"  There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  whether  this  clause  should  be 
enforced  by  national  or  by  state  authority;  but  surely  that  difference  is 
not  a  very  material  one.  If  the  slave  is  to  be  surrendered,  it  can  be  of 
but  little  consequence  to  him  or  to  others  by  which  authority  it  is  done; 
and  should  any  one,  in  any  case,  be  content  that  this  oath  shall  go  un- 
kept  on  a  merely  unsubstantial  controversy  as  to  how  it  shall  be  kept? 

"Again,  in  any  law  upon  this  subject,  ought  not  all  the  safeguards  of 
liberty  known  in  civilized  and  humane  jurisprudence  to  be  introduced, 
so  that  a  free  man  be  not,  in  any  case,  surrendered  as  a  slave  ?  And 
might  it  not  be  well  at  the  same  time  to  provide  by  law  for  the  en 
forcement  of  that  clause  in  the  Constitution  which  guarantees  that  'the 
citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immuni 
ties  of  citizens  in  the  several  states?' 

"I  take  the  official  oath  to-day  with  no  mental  reservations,  and  with 
no  purpose  to  construe  the  Constitution  or  laws  by  any  hypercritical 
rules;  and  while  I  do  not  choose  now  to  specify  particular  acts  of  Con 
gress  as  proper  to  be  enforced,  I  do  suggest  that  it  will  be  much  safer 
for  all,  both  in  official  and  private  stations,  to  conform  to  and  abide  by 
all  those  acts  which  stand  unrepealed,  than  to  violate  any  of  them, 
trusting  to  find  impunity  in  having  them  held  to  be  unconstitutional. 

"  It  is  seventy-two  years  since  the  first  inauguration  of  a  President 
under  our  national  Constitution.  During  that  period  fifteen  different 
and  very  distinguished  citizens  have  in  succession  administered  the  ex 
ecutive  branch  of  the  government.  They  have  conducted  it  through 
many  perils,  and  generally  with  great  success.  Yet,  with  all  this  scope 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  281 

for  precedent,  I  now  enter  upon  the  same  task,  for  the  brief  constitu 
tional  term  of  four  years,  under  great  and  peculiar  difficulties. 

"A  disruption  of  the  Federal  Union, heretofore  only  menaced, is  now 
formidably  attempted.  I  hold  that  in  the  contemplation  of  universal 
law  and  of  the  Constitution,  the  union  of  these  states  is  perpetual. 
Perpetuity  is  implied,  if  not  expressed,  in  the  fundamental  law  of  all 
national  governments.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  government  proper 
ever  had  a  provision  in  its  organic  law  for  its  own  termination.  Con 
tinue  to  execute  all  the  express  provisions  of  our  national  Constitution, 
and  the  Union  will  endure  forever,  it  being  impossible  to  destroy  it  ex 
cept  by  some  action  not  provided  for  in  the  instrument  itself. 

"  Again,  if  the  United  States  be  not  a  government  proper,  but  an  as 
sociation  of  states  in  the  nature  of  a  contract  merely,  can  it,  as  a  con 
tract,  be  peaceably  unmade  by  less  than  all  the  parties  who  made  it  ? 
One  party  to  a  contract  may  violate  it — break  it,  so  to  speak;  but  does 
it  not  require  all  to  lawfully  rescind  it?  Descending  from  these  gen 
eral  principles,  we  find  the  proposition  that  in  legal  contemplation  the 
Union  is  perpetual,  confirmed  by  the  history  of  the  Union  itself. 

"  The  Union  is  much  older  than  the  Constitution.  It  was  formed,  in 
fact,  by  the  Articles  of  Association  in  1774.  It  was  matured  and  con 
tinued  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776.  It  was  further  ma 
tured,  and  the  faith  of  all  the  then  thirteen  states  expressly  plighted 
and  engaged  that  it  should  be  perpetual,  by  the  Articles  of  the  Confeder 
ation,  in  1778;  and,  finally,  in  1787,  one  of  the  declared  objects  for  or 
daining  and  establishing  the  Constitution  was  to  form  a  more  perfect 
union.  But  if  the  destruction  of  the  Union  by  one  or  by  a  part  only 
of  the  states  be  lawfully  possible,  the  Union  is  less  perfect  than  before, 
the  Constitution  having  lost  the  vital  element  of  perpetuity. 

"It  follows  from  these  views  that  no  state,  upon  its  own  mere  motion, 
can  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union;  that  resolves  and  ordinances  to  that 
effect  are  legally  void;  and  that  acts  of  violence  within  any  state  or 
states  against  the  authority  of  the  United  States  are  insurrectionary  or 
revolutionary,  according  to  circumstances. 

"I  therefore  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws, 
the  Union  is  unbroken,  and,  to  the  extent  of  my  ability,  I  shall  take 
care,  as  the  Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that  the  laws 
of  the  Union  shall  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  states.  Doing  this, 
which  I  deem  to  be  only  a  simple  duty  on  my  part,  I  shall  perfectly 
perform  it,  so  far  as  is  practicable,  unless  my  rightful  masters,  the 
American  people,  shall  withhold  the  requisition,  or  in  some  authorita 
tive  manner  direct  the  contrary. 

"I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace,  but  only  as  the  de 
clared  purpose  of  the  Union  that  it  will  constitutionally  defend  and 
maintain  itself. 


282  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"  In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence,  and  there  shall 
be  none  unless  it  is  forced  upon  the  national  authority. 

"  The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  the 
property  and  places  belonging  to  the  government,  and  collect  the  duties  and 
imposts;  but  beyond  what  may  be  necessary  for  these  objects  there  will 
be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or  among  the  people  anywhere. 

"  Where  hostility  to  the  United  States  shall  be  so  great  and  so  uni 
versal  as  to  prevent  competent  resident  citizens  from  holding  fed 
eral  offices,  there  will  be  no  attempt  to  force  obnoxious  strangers  among 
the  people  that  object.  While  strict  legal  right  may  exist  of  the  gov 
ernment  to  enforce  the  exercise  of  these  offices,  the  attempt  to  do  so 
would  be  so  irritating,  and  so  nearly  impracticable  withal,  that  1  deem 
it  best  to  forego  for  the  time  the  uses  of  such  offices. 

"  The  mails,  unless  repelled,  will  continue  to  be  furnished  in  all  parts 
of  the  Union. 

"  So  far  as  possible,  the  people  everywhere  shall  have  that  sense  of 
perfect  security  which  is  most  favorable  to  calm  thought  and  reflection. 

"The  course  here  indicated  will  be  followed,  unless  current  events 
and  experience  shall  show  a  modification  or  change  to  be  proper;  and 
in  every  case  and  exigency  my  best  discretion  will  be  exercised  accord 
ing  to  the  circumstances  actually  existing,  and  with  a  view  and  hope  of 
a  peaceful  solution  of  the  national  troubles,  and  the  restoration  of  fra 
ternal  sympathies  and  affections. 

"  That  there  are  persons,  in  one  section  or  another,  who  seek  to  de 
stroy  the  Union  at  all  events,  and  are  glad  of  any  pretext  to  do  it,  I 
will  neither  affirm  nor  deny.  But  if  there  be  such,  I  need  address  no 
word  to  them. 

"  To  those,  however,  who  really  love  the  Union,  may  I  not  speak,  be 
fore  entering  upon  so  grave  a  matter  as  the  destruction  of  our  national 
fabric,  with  all  its  benefits,  its  memories,  and  its  hopes?  Would  it  not 
be  well  to  ascertain  why  we  do  it?  Will  you  hazard  so  desperate  a 
step,  while  any  portion  of  the  ills  you  fly  from  have  no  real  existence  ? 
Will  you,  while  the  certain  ills  you  fly  to  are  greater  than  all  the  real 
ones  you  fly  from?  Will  you  risk  the  commission  of  so  fearful  a  mis 
take  ?  All  profess  to  be  content  in  the  Union  if  all  constitutional  rights 
can  be  maintained.  Is  it  true,  then,  that  any  right,  plainly  written  in  the 
Constitution, 'has  been  denied?  I  think  not.  Happily  the  human  mind 
is  so  constituted  that  no  party  can  reach  to  the  audacity  of  doing  this. 

"Think,  if  you  can,  of  a  single  instance  in  which  a  plainly-written 
provision  of  the  Constitution  has  ever  been  denied.  If,  by  the  mere 
force  of  numbers,  a  majority  should  deprive  a  minority  of  any  clearly- 
written  constitutional  right,  it  might,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  justify 
revolution ;  it  certainly  would,  if  such  right  were  a  vital  one.  But  such 
is  not  our  case. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  283 

"  All  the  vital  rights  of  minorities  and  of  individuals  are  so  plainly 
assured  to  them  by  affirmations  and  negations,  guaranties  and  prohibi 
tions  in  the  Constitution,  that  controversies  never  arise  concerning 
them.  But  no  organic  law  can  ever  be  framed  with  a  provision  specifi 
cally  applicable  to  every  question  which  may  occur  in  practical  admin 
istration.  No  foresight  can  anticipate,  nor  any  document  of  reasonable 
length  contain,  express  provisions  for  all  possible  questions.  Shall 
fugitives  from  labor  be  surrendered  by  national  or  by  state  authorities  ? 
The  Constitution  does  not  expressly  say.  Must  Congress  protect  slav 
ery  in  the  territories?  The  Constitution  does  not  expressly  say.  From 
questions  of  this  class,  spring  all  our  constitutional  controversies,  and 
we  divide  upon  them  into  majorities  and  minorities. 

"If  the  minority  will  not  acquiesce,  the  majority  must,  or  the  gov 
ernment  must  cease.  There  is  no  alternative  for  continuing  the  gov 
ernment  but  acquiescence  on  the  one  side  or  the  ether.  If  a  minority 
in  such  a  case  will  secede  rather  than  acquiesce,  they  make  a  precedent, 
which,  in  turn,  will  ruin  and  divide  them,  for  a  minority  of  their  own 
will  secede  from  them  whenever  a  majority  refuses  to  be  controlled  by 
such  a  minority.  For  instance,  why  not  any  portion  of  a  new  confed 
eracy,  a  year  or  two  hence,  arbitrarily  secede  again,  precisely  as  por 
tions  of  the  present  Union  now  claim  to  secede  from  it?  All  who 
cherish  disunion  sentiments  are  now  being  educated  to  the  exact  temper 
of  doing  this.  Is  there  such  perfect  identity  of  interests  among  the 
states  to  compose  a  new  Union  as  to  produce  harmony  only,  and  pre 
vent  renewed  secession?  Plainly,  the  central  idea  of  secession  is  the 
essence  of  anarchy. 

"A  majority  held  in  restraint  by  constitutional  check  and  limitation, 
and  always  changing  easily  with  deliberate  changes  of  popular  opinions 
and  sentiments,  is  the  only  true  sovereign  of  a  free  people.  Whoever 
rejects  it,  does,  of  necessity,  fly  to  anarchy  or  to  despotism.  Unanimity 
is  impossible ;  the  rule  of  a  minority,  as  a  permanent  arrangement,  is 
wholly  inadmissible.  So  that,  rejecting  the  majority  principle,  anarchy 
or  despotism,  in  some  form,  is  all  that  is  left. 

"  I  do  not  forget  the  position  assumed  by  some  that  constitutional 
questions  are  to  be  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court,  nor  do  I  deny  that 
such  decisions  must  be  binding  in  any  case  upon  the  parties  to  a  suit, 
as  to  the  object  of  that  suit,  while  they  are  also  entitled  to  a  very  high 
respect  and  consideration  in  all  parallel  cases  by  all  other  departments 
of  the  government;  and  while  it  is  obviously  possible  that  such  decision 
may  be  erroneous  in  any  given  case,  still  the  evil  effect  following  it, 
being  limited  to  that  particular  case,  with  the  chance  that  it  may  be 
overruled  and  never  become  a  precedent  for  other  cases,  can  better  be 
borne  than  could  the  evils  of  a  different  practice. 

"  At  the  same  time  the  candid  citizen  must  confess  that,  if  the  policy 


284  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  the  government  upon  the  vital  question  affecting  the  whole  people 
is  to  be  irrevocably  fixed  by  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the 
instant  they  are  made,  as  in  ordinary  litigation  between  parties  in  per 
sonal  actions,  the  people  will  have  ceased  to  be  their  own  masters,  un 
less  having  to  that  extent  practically  resigned  their  government  into 
the  hands  of  that  eminent  tribunal. 

"  Nor  is  there  in  this  view  any  assault  upon  the  court  or  the  judges. 
It  is  a  duty  from  which  they  may  not  shrink,  to  decide  cases  properly 
brought  before  them;  and  it  is  no  fault  of  theirs  if  others  seek  to  turn 
their  decisions  to  political  purposes.  One  section  of  our  country  be 
lieves  slavery  is  right,  and  ought  to  be  extended,  while  the  other  be 
lieves  it  is  wrong,  and  ought  not  to  be  extended-,  and  this  is  the  only 
substantial  dispute;  and  the  fugitive  slave  clause  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  law  for  the  suppression  of  the  foreign  slave  trade,  are  each  as 
well  enforced,  perhaps,  as  any  law  can  ever  be  in  a  community  where 
the  moral  sense  of  the  people  imperfectly  supports  the  law  itself.  The 
great  body  of  the  people  abide  by  the  dry  legal  obligation  in  both  cases, 
and  a  few  break  over  in  each.  This,  I  think,  cannot  be  perfectly  cured, 
and  it  would  be  worse,  in  both  cases,  after  the  separation  of  the  sections, 
than  before.  The  foreign  slave  trade,  now  imperfectly  suppressed, 
woujd  be  ultimately  revived,  without  restriction,  in  one  section;  while 
fugitive  slaves,  now  only  partially  surrendered,  would  not  be  surren 
dered  at  all  by  the  other 

"Physically  speaking  we  can  not  separate;  we  can  not  remove  our 
respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor  build  an  impassable  wall  be 
tween  them,  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and  go  out  of  the 
presence  and  beyond  the  read)  of  each  other,  but  the  different  parts  of 
our  country  cannot  do  this.  They  can  not  but  remain  face  to  face;  and 
intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile,  must  continue  between  them. 
Is  it  possible,  then,  to  make  that  intercourse  more  advantageous  or 
more  satisfactory  after  separation  than  before?  Can  aliens  make  treat 
ies  easier  than  friends  can  make  laws?  Can  treaties  be  more  faithfully 
enforced  between  aliens  than  laws  can  among  friends?  Suppose  you 
go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always;  and  when,  after  much  loss  on  both 
sides,  and  no  gain  on  either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  identical  questions 
as  to  terms  of  intercourse  are  again  upon  you. 

"This  country,  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the  people  who  inhabit 
it.  Whenever  they  shall  grow  weary  of  the  existing  government,  they 
can  exercise  their  constitutional  right  of  amending,  or  their  revolution 
ary  right  to  dismember  or  overthrow  it.  I  can  not  be  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  many  worthy  and  patriotic  citizens  are  desirous  of  having  the 
national  Constitution  amended.  While  I  make  no  recommendation  of 
amendment.  I  fully  recognize  the  full  authority  of  the  people  over  the 
whole  subject,  to  be  exercised  in  either  of  the  modes  prescribed  in  the 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  285 

instrument  itself,  and  I  should,  under  existing  circumstances,  favor 
rather  than  oppose  a  fair  opportunity  being  afforded  the  people  to  act 
upon  it. 

"I  will  venture  to  add,  that  to  me  the  convention  mode  seems  prefer 
able,  in  that  it  allows  amendments  to  originate  with  the  people  them 
selves,  instead  of  only  permitting  them  to  take  or  reject  propositions 
originated  by  others  not  especially  chosen  for  the  purpose,  and  which 
might  not  be  precisely  such  as  they  would  wish  either  to  accept  or  re 
fuse.  I  understand  that  a  proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
(which  amendment,  however,  I  have  not  seen)  has  passed  Congress,  to 
the  effect  that  the  federal  government  shall  never  interfere  with  the 
domestic  institutions  of  states,  including  that  of  persons  held  to  service. 
To  avoid  misconstruction  of  what  I  have  said,  I  depart  from  my  purpose 
not  to  speak  of  particular  amendments,  so  far  as  to  say  that,  holding 
such  a  provison  to  now  be  implied  constitutional  law,  I  have  no  objec 
tion  to  its  being  made  express  and  irrevocable. 

"  The  chief  magistrate  derives  all  his  authority  from  the  people,  and 
they  have  conferred  none  upon  him  to  fix  the  terms  for  the  separation 
of  the  states.  The  people  themselves,  also,  can  do  this  if  they  choose, 
but  the  executive,  as  such,  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  His  duty  is  to 
administer  the  present  government  as  it  came  to  his  hands,  and,  to 
transmit  it  unimpaired  by  him  to  his  successor.  Why  should^there  not 
be  a  patient  confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people  ?  Is  there 
any  better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world?  In  our  present  differences  is 
either  party  without  faith  of  being  in  the  right?  If  the  Almighty 
Ruler  of  nations,  with  his  eternal  truth  and  justice,  be  on  your  side  of 
the  North,  or  on  yours  of  the  South,  that  truth  and  that  justice  will 
surely  prevail  by  the  judgment  of  this  great  tribunal,  the  American 
people.  By  the  frame  of  the  government  under  which  we  live,  this 
same  people  have  wisely  given  their  public  servants  but  little  power 
for  mischief,  and  have  with  equal  wisdom  provided  for  the  return  of 
that  little  to  their  own  hands  at  very  short  intervals.  While  the  people 
retain  their  virtue  and  vigilance,  no  administration,  by  any  extreme 
•wickedness  or  folly,  can  very  seriously  injure  the  government  in  the 
short  space  of  four  years. 

"My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this  whole 
subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time. 

"If  there  be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you,  in  hot  haste,  to  a  step 
which  you  would  never  take  deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated 
by  taking  time :  but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated  by  it. 

"  Such  of  you  as  are  now  dissatisfied  still  have  the  old  Constitution 
unimpaired,  and,  on  the  sensitive  point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing 
under  it ;  while  the  new  administration  will  have  no  immediate  power, 
if  it  would,  to  change  either. 


286  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

« If  it  were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right  side 
in  the  dispute,  there  is  still  no  single  reason  for  precipitate  action.  In 
telligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on  Him  who  has 
never  yet  forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still  competent  to  adjust,  in 
the  best  way,  all  our  present  difficulties. 

"In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in  mine, 
is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail 
you. 

"  You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  have  no  oath  registered  in  Heaven  to  destroy  the  government; 
while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  'preserve,  protect,  and  de 
fend  '  it 

*;I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not 
be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our 
bonds  of  affection.  i. 

"  The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle-field  and 
patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad 
land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as 
surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

The  address  delivered  and  the  oath  administered,  the  au 
gust  ceremonies  of  the  occasion  were  concluded ;  and,  passing 
back  through  the  Senate  Chamber,  the  President  was  escorted 
to  the  White  House,  where  Mr.  Buchanan  took  leave  of  him, 
and  where  the  people  were  received  by  him  in  large  numbers. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  on  being  asked  whether  he  felt  frightened  while 
delivering  his  address,  in  consequence  of  the  threats  of  assas 
sination,  replied  that  he  had  frequently  experienced  greater 
fear  in  addressing  a  dozen  western  men  on  the  subject  of  tem 
perance.  Of  one  thing  the  "fire-eaters  "  were  assured  by  the 
address,  viz :  that  if  a  war  was  to  be  inaugurated,  they  would 
be  obliged  to  fire  the  first  gun.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  pledged 
himself  to  take  no  step  of  even  doubtful  propriety.  He  pro 
posed  simply  to  possess  and  hold  the  property  of  the  United 
States. 

And  now  began  the  great  work  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  life.  The 
humble  boy,  reared  in  a  log  cabin,  was  the  great  man,  occu 
pying  the  proudest  place  in  the  nation,  in  the  most  perilous 
period  of  that  nation's  existence.  He  was  in  the  White 
House  as  God's  and  the  people's  instrument,  to  work  for  both. 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  287 

His  first  duty  was  the  formal  designation  of  a  cabinet,  for 
undoubtedly  his  choice  of  secretaries  was  essentially  settled  in 
his  own  mind  before  he  left  home.  The  highest  position  was 
offered  to  Mr.  Seward,  the  first  statesman  in  the  republican 
party,  and  the  equal  if  not  the  superior  of  any  in  the  country. 
Concerning  the  filling  of  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State,  it  is 
believed  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  hesitation.  Mr.  Seward 
was  his  first  and  last  choice.  .  With  equal  promptitude  he  de 
cided  to  call  Edward  Bates  of  Missouri  to  the  office  of  Attor 
ney  General.  Simon  Cameron  of  Pennsylvania  was  known 
to  be  an  aspirant  for  cabinet  honors;  and,  it  is  believed,  would 
have  accepted  the  post  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  with  more 
alacrity  than  he  did  that  of  Secretary  of  War,  to  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  called  him.  Salmon  P.  Chase  of  Ohio,  who  shared 
with  Mr.  Seward  the  highest  regards  of  the  republican  party 
and  the  confidence  of  the  country,  was  appointed  to  the 
Treasury.  The  men  thus  brought  into  the  government  were 
all  prominent  candidates  for  the  presidency  at  Chicago,  and 
on  the  first  ballot  received  an  aggregate  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty-one  votes  of  the  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  cast. 
The  great  majority  of  the  party  thus  had  the  expression  of 
their  first  choice  for  the  presidency  honored  by  Mr.  Lincoln 
in  a  remarkable  degree.  Gideon  Welles  of  Connecticut  was 
appointed  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Caleb  B.  Smith  of  Indi 
ana,  an  old  personal  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  for  many 
years  a  distinguished  politician  of  the  West,  was  offered  the 
Portfolio  of  the  Interior,  and  accepted  it;  and  Montgomery 
Blair  of  Maryland  was  appointed  Postmaster  General. 

Thus  furnished  with  his  secretaries,  another  most  important 
work  opened  before  him — the  clearing  the  departments  of  the 
sympathizers  with  treason.  This  was  indeed  a  Herculean 
task.  Treason  was  everywhere.  Every  department  was  in 
fected.  The  men  had  been  manipulated  so  long  by  treason 
able  hands — had  been  moulded  into  such  thorough  sympathy 
with  the  rebellion — and  had  so  imbibed  its  treacherous  spirit, 
that  no  measure  could  be  discussed  or  adopted  by  the  new 
administration  that  waa  not  reported  to  the  rebels  by  some 


288  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

clerk  or  confidant.  The  government  was  betrayed  every  day 
by  its  own  agents.  Not  a  step  could  be  taken  by  Mr.  Lincoln, 
in  any  direction,  that  some  spy  in  the  departments,  or  some 
traitor  in  his  confidence,  did  not  report  to  his  enemies. 

There  were  certain  things  that  Mr.  Lincoln  specially  en 
deavored  to  do  in  his  inaugural  address,  and  in  all  the  prelim 
inary  work  of  his  administration.  He  endeavored  to  show 
that  the  rebellion  was  without  an  adequate  cause — to  show 
this  first  to  his  own  people,  and  then  to  the  governments  and 
peoples  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  He  endeavored  to 
leave  no  way  untried  that  promised  to  procure  or  preserve  an 
honorable  peace.  He  endeavored  so  to  manage  affairs  that 
whenever  open  hostilities  should  come,  they  should  be  begun 
by  the  rebels  and  not  by  the  government.  He  intended  to 
preserve  for  himself  and  for  the  government  a  clean  record. 
He  intended  to  bear  with  the  rebellion  just  so  long  as  it  con 
fined  itself  to  paper — nay,  further  than  this — to  boar  with  it 
to  the  silent  sufferance  of  many  practical  indignities.  He  did 
not  mean  to  unsheath  a  sword,  or  fire  a  gun,  until  the  rebellion 
absolutely  compelled  him  to  do  so.  Yet,  while  waiting  the 
development  of  events,  he  was  very  busily  engaged  in  clearing 
the  government  for  action.  Many  of  the  revelations  and 
movements  of  the  first  few  weeks  would  doubtless  be  startling, 
even  to-day,  but  the  time  has  not  yet  come  for  their  exposure. 

Mr.  Lincoln  found  not  only  the  departments  corrupt  and 
unreliable,  but  he  found  the  public  mind  abroad  thoroughly 
poisoned  against  him,  and  fully  in  sympathy  with  the  seces- 
sjonists.  Perhaps  a  majority  of  the  representatives  of  the 
government  in  Europe  were  in  the  secrets  of  the  seceders, 
and,  in  company  with  many  who  had  gone  from  the  southern 
states  to  shape  public  opinion  to  the  interests  of  treason,  were 
doing  everything  in  their  power  to  injure  the  government 
which  had  honored  them.  The  places  thus  disgraced  and 
made  instruments  in  the  hands  of  treason  were  to  be  filled  by 
loyal  men ;  and  a  set  of  influences  were  to  be  put  in  motion 
which  should  secure  respect  for  the  government,  and  a  sound 
understanding  of  the  merits  of  the  controversy  between  the 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  289 

government  and  slavery.  To  fill  these  places  was  not  an  easy 
task,  but  it  was  done  quickly  and,  in  the  main,  wisely. 

It  is  proper  here  to  give  an  explanation  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
pacific  policy,  at  this  time.  Great  fault  was  subsequently 
found  with  him  by  the  extremists  among  his  northern  friends, 
for  his  deference  to  the  border  states ;  and  a  full  understanding 
of  his  policy,  as  it  related  to  these  states,  cannot  be  had  with 
out  going  back  to  this  period  when  it  was  initiated.  There 
were  fifteen  slave  states,  which  those  engaged  in  the  rebellion 
hoped  to  lead  or  to  force  into  secession.  At  the  time  of  the 
inauguration,  only  seven  of  these  fifteen — less  than  a  major 
ity — had  revolted.  The  cotton  states  alone  had  followed  the 
lead  of  South  Carolina  out  of  the  Union.  Several  weeks  had 
passed  since  a  state  had  seceded ;  and  unless  other  states  could 
be  dragooned  into  the  movement,  the  rebellion  would  be  prac 
tically  a  failure  from  the  start.  Such  a  confederacy  could  not 
hope  to  live  a  year,  and  would  be  obliged  to  find  its  way  back 
into  the  Union  upon  some  terms.  In  the  meantime,  two  or 
three  conventions  in  the  border  states,  delegated  freshly  from 
the  people,  had  voted  distinctly  and  decidedly  not  to  secede. 
The  affairs  of  the  confederacy  were  really  in  a  very  precarious 
condition  when  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  power.  The  rebel  gov 
ernment  was  making  very  much  more  bluster  than  progress. 

It  became  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy  so  to  conduct  affairs  as  to 
strengthen  the  Union  feeling  in  the  border  states,  and  to  give 
utterance  to  no  sentiment  and  to  do  no  deed  which  should 
drive  these  states  toward  the  confederacy.  lie  saw  that  if  he 
could  hold  these  states,  there  could  not  be  a  very  serious  war ; 
for  the  first  condition  of  success  to  the  rebel  cause  was  its 
general  adoption  by  the  border  slave  states.  To  hold  these 
states  by  every  means  that  did  not  bring  absolute  disgrace 
upon  the  government  was  his  object.  He  must  do  nothing 
that  would  weaken  the  hands  of  Union  men.  The  difficult 
position  of  these  Union  men  he  fully  comprehended  and  con 
sidered.  Of  course,  he  had  a  hard  path  to  pursue ;  and  it  is 
not  strange  that  those  more  hasty  than  himself  should  some 
times  think  he  was  loitering  by  the  way,  or  was  making  it 
19 


290  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

more  tortuous  than  was  either  necessary  or  expedient.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  the  politicians  of  New  England  ever  o*ave 
Mr.  Lincoln  the  credit  which  was  his  due  for  retaining  in  the 
Union  those  slave  states  which  never  left  their  allegiance.  An 
early  and  decided  war  policy  would  have  been  morally  certain 
to  drive  every  slave  state  into  the  confederacy,  except  Mary 
land  and  Delaware,  and  they  would  only  have  been  retained 
by  force. 

The  confederacy  found  that  it  must  make  progress  or  die. 
The  rebel  Congress  passed  a  measure  for  the  organization  of 
an  army,  on  the  ninth  of  March,  and  on  the  twelfth  two  con 
federate  commissioners — Mr.  Forsyth  of  Alabama  and  Mr. 
Crawford  of  Georgia — presented  themselves  at  the  State  De 
partment  at  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  treaty 
with  the  United  States.  They  knew,  of  course,  that  they 
could  not  be  received  officially,  and  that  they  ought  to  be  ar 
rested  for  treason.  The  President  would  not  recognize  them, 

O  ' 

but  sent  to  them  a  copy  of  his  Inaugural,  as  the  embodiment 
of  the  views  of  the  government.  The  commissioners  hung 
about  Washington  for  a  month,  learning  what  they  could,  and 
in  daily  communication  with  the  traitors  who  still  haunted  the 
confidence  of  the  heads  of  the  government.  Mr.  Seward's 
reply  to  them,  on  the  eighth  of  April,  was  delayed  at  their 
own  request  until  that  time,  and  when  it  came  they  probably 
knew  what  its  contents  and  character  would  be.  In  order  to 
give  secession  a  new  impetus,  they  wished,  in  some  way,  to 
throw  the  responsibility  of  beginning  war  upon  the  Washing 
ton  authorities,  and  to  make  it  appear  that  they  had  exhausted 
all  peaceable  measures  for  an  adjustment  of  the  difficulties. 

In  the  meantime,  Lieutenant  Talbot,  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  was  having  interviews  with  Governor  Pickens  of  South 
Carolina  and  with  General  Beauregard,  in  command  of  the 
confederate  forces  there,  in  which  he  informed  them  that  pro 
visions  would  be  sent  to  Fort  Sumter  peaceably  if  possible, — 
otherwise  by  force.  This  was  communicated  to  L.  P.  Walker, 
then  rebel  Secretary  of  War.  Before  Talbot  had  made  his 
communication,  Beauregard  had  informed  Major  Anderson, 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  291 

in  command  of  Fort  Sumter,  that  lie  must  have  no  further 
intercourse  with  Charleston;  and  Talbot  himself  was  refused 
permission  to  visit  that  gallant  and  faithful  officer. 

These  were  very  dark  days  with  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  rebels 
were  determined  to  wrest  from  him  a  pretext  for  war — deter 
mined  to  make  him  take  a  step  which  could  be  made  to  appear 
to  be  the  first  step.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  making  rapid 
preparations  for  war,  all  of  which  must  be  kept  secret  from 
friends,  that  they  might  not  exasperate  foes.  The  loyal  press 
became  impatient  with  his  apparent  inactivity,  and  under  the 
inspiration  of  this  press  the  loyal  masses  became  uneasy. 
Under  these  circumstances,  there  were  not  wanting  disloyal 
men  in  the  North,  who  became  bold  in  the  entertainment  of 
schemes  for  a  revolution.  Mr.  Douglas  himself  did  not  sup 
port  the  administration,  although  he  had  publicly  declared  for 
coercion.  He  could  not  forget  his  hatred  of  the  republican 
party ;  and  was  ready  for  almost  any  scheme  for  its  destruc 
tion.  He  wished  to  organize  a  great  compromise  party, 
which  would  consent  to  the  reconstruction  of  the  Union,  with 
slavery  recognized  and  protected  in  all  its  departments.  Un 
til  the  first  overt  act  of  war  had  been  committed,  he  brought 
no  aid  to  the  government. 

While  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends  were  clamoring  for  a  policy — 
as  if  he  had  not  a  very  decided  one — and  his  foes  north  and 
south  were  busy  with  their  schemes  for  the  destruction  of 
himself,  his  party  and  his  country,  he  was  performing  the 
most  exhausting  labors.  He  was  thronged  with  office-seekers, 
to  whose  claims  he  gave  his  personal  attention.  He  was  hold 
ing  protracted  cabinet  meetings.  He  was  in  almost  hourly 
intercourse  with  prominent  men  from  every  section  of  the 
country.  All  these  labors  he  was  performing  with  the  con 
sciousness  that  his  nominal  friends  were  doubtful,  that  seven 
states  were  in  open  revolt,  and  that  a  majority  throughout  the 
Union  had  not  the  slightest  sympathy  with  him. 

There  was  distraction,  also,  in  his  counsels.  Loyal  men, 
burning  with  patriotic  indignation,  were  demanding  that  Fort 
Sumter  should  be  reinforced  and  provisioned,  while  the  vet- 


292  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

eran  Lieutenant  General  was  advising  its  abandonment  as  a 
military  necessity.  The  wisdom  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  waiting 
became  evident  at  a  day  not  too  long  delayed.  Fort  Pickens, 
which  the  rebels  had  not  taken,  was  quietly  reinforced,  and 
when  the  vessels  which  carried  the  relief  were  dispatched, 
Mr.  Lincoln  gave  official  information  to  General  Beauregard 
that  provisions  were  to  be  sent  to  Major  Anderson  in  Fort 
Sumter,  by  an  unarmed  vessel.  He  was  determined  that  no 
hostile  act  on  the  part  of  the  government  should  commence  the 
war,  for  which  both  sides  were  preparing ;  although  an  act  of 
open  war  had  already  transpired  in  Charleston  harbor,  for 
which  the  rebel  forces  were  responsible.  The  steamer  Star 
of  the  West,  loaded  with  troops  and  provisions  for  Major 
Anderson,  was  fired  upon  and  driven  out  of  the  harbor  two 
months  before  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  term  of  office. 
The  supplying  the  garrison  with  food  was  an  act  of  humanity, 
and  not  an  act  of  war,  except  as  it  might  be  so  construed. 

Beauregard  laid  this  last  intelligence  before  his  Secretary 
of  War,  and  under  special  instructions,  on  the  twelfth  of 
April,  he  demanded  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter.  He  was 
ready  to  make  the  demand,  and  to  back  it  by  force.  The  city 
of  Charleston  was  full  of  troops,  and,  for  months,  batteries 
had  been  in  course  of  construction,  with  the  special  purpose 
of  compelling  the  surrender  of  the  fort.  Major  Anderson 
had  seen  these  batteries  going  up,  day  after  day,  without  the 
liberty  to  fire  a  gun.  He  declined  to  surrender.  He  was 
called  upon  to  state  when  he  would  evacuate  the  fort.  He  re 
plied  that  on  the  fifteenth  he  would  do  so,  should  he  not  mean 
time  receive  controlling  instructions  from  the  government,  or 
additional  supplies.  The  response  which  he  received  was  that 
the  confederate  batteries  would  open  on  Fort  Sumter  in  one 
hour  from  the  date  of  the  message.  The  date  of  the  message 
was  "April  12,  1861,  3:30  A.  M."  Beauregard  was  true 
to  his  word.  At  half  past  four,  the  batteries  opened  upon  the 
fort,  which,  after  a  long  and  terrible  bombardment,  and  a  gal 
lant  though  comparatively  feeble  defense  by  a  small  and  half- 
starved  garrison,  was  surrendered  the  following  day. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  293 

This  was  practically  the  initial  act  of  war.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
by  his  determined  forbearance,  had  thrown  the  onus  of  its 
commencement  upon  the  rebel  government.  Never  by  word, 
or  deed,  or  declared  or  concealed  intention,  had  he  wronged 
the  South,  or  denied  its  rights  under  the  Constitution.  By  no 
hostite  act  had  he  provoked  war.  From  the  time  he  had  first 
opened  his  lips  as  President  of  the  United  States,  he  had 
breathed  none  but  pacific  words.  He  had  claimed  the  least 
that  he  could  claim  for  the  government,  and  still  preserve  a 
show  of  right  and  power.  Upon  the  heads  of  the  conspirators 
rested  every  particle  of  responsibility  for  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  and  the  train  of  horrors  that  followed.  The  rebellion 
was  conceived  in  perjury,  brought  forth  in  violence,  cradled 
in  ignorance,  and  reared  upon  spoil.  It  never  had  an  apology 
for  existence  that  will  be  entertained  for  a  moment  at  the  bar 
of  history.  It  never  was  anything  from  its  birth  to  its  death 
but  a  crime — a  crime  against  Christianity,  against  patriotism, 
against  humanity,  against  civilization,  against  progress,  against 
personal  and  political  honor,  against  the  people  who  were 
forced  to  support  it,  against  the  people  who  voluntarily  put  it 
down,  and  against  that  God  to  whom  it  blasphemously  appealed 
for  justification,  and  arrogantly  prayed  for  success. 

The  fall  of  Sumter  was  the  resurrection  of  patriotism.  The 
North  needed  just  this.  Such  a  universal  burst  of  patriotic 
indignation  as  ran  over  the  North  under  the  influence  of  this 

O 

insult  to  the  national  flag  has  never  been  witnessed.  It  swept 
away  all  party  lines  as  if  it  had  been  flame  and  they  had  been 
flax.  No  combination  of  moral  influences  could  thus  have 
united  in  one  feeling  and  purpose  the  elements  which  the  fire 
from  those  batteries  welded  into  a  burning  union.  All  dis 
loyalty  was  silenced.  Compromise  was  a  word  that  had  no 
significance.  "Coercion" — a  word  which  had  had  a  fearful 
meaning  among  the  timid — lost  its  terrors.  There  was  a  uni 
versal  desire,  all  over  the  North,  to  avenge  the  foul  insult.  It 
was  worth  a  life-time  of  indifference  or  discord  to  feel  and  to 
see  a  nation  thus  once  more  united  in  thought  and  purpose, 
and  to  realize  that  underneath  all  divisions  of  party  and  sect, 


294  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

and  deeper  down  than  selfish  interest  and  personal  prejudice, 
there  was  a  love  of  country  which  made  us  a  nation. 

Now  was  the  time  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  act.  Up  to  this  date 
he  had  had  no  basis  for  action  in  the  popular  feeling.  If  he 
had  raised  an  army,  that  would  have  been  an  act  of  hostility — 
that  would  have  been  a  threat  of  "coercion."  A  thousand 
northern  presses  would  have  pounced  upon  him  as  a  provoker 
of  war.  On  the  fifteenth  of  April  he  issued  a  proclamation, 
calling  upon  the  loyal  states  for  seventy-five  thousand  men  to 
protect  the  national  capital,  and  suppress  such  combinations 
as  had  been  made  to  resist  the  inforcement  of  the  laws  of  the 
United  States.  "I  appeal"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  this  procla 
mation,  "to  all  loyal  citizens  to  favor,  facilitate  and  aid  this 
effort  to  maintain  the  honor,  the  integrity  and  existence  of  our 
national  Union,  and  the  perpetuity  of  popular  government, 
and  to  redress  the  wrongs  already  long  enough  endured." 
The  first  service,  he  stated,  to  which  the  forces  thus  called  for 
would  -be  subjected  would  be  to  repossess  the  forts,  places  and 
property  taken  from  the  Union  by  the  rebels.  By  the  same 
proclamation  he  convened  both  Houses  of  Congress  to  assem 
ble  on  the  fourth  of  July. 

The  utterance  of  this  proclamation  was  so  clearly  a  necessity, 
and  Avas  so  directly  a  response  to  the  uprising  of  the  people, 
that  not  a  voice  was  raised  against  it.  It  was  received  with 
no  small  degree  of  excitement,  but  it  was  a  healthy  excite 
ment.  It  was  a  necessity;  and  loyal  men  everywhere  felt 
that  the  great  struggle  between  slavery  and  the  country  was 
upon  them.  "Better  that  it  should  be  settled  by  us  than  by 
our  children,"  said  men,  everywhere ;  and  in  their  self-devo 
tion  they  were  encouraged  by  their  mothers,  sisters  and  wives. 
The  South  knew  that  war  must  come,  and  they  were  prepared. 
Nearly  all  the  southern  forts  were  already  in  their  hands. 
They  had  robbed  the  northern  arsenals  through  the  miscreant 
Floyd.  They  had  cut  off  the  payment  of  all  debts  due  the 
North.  They  had  ransacked  the  mails,  so  that  the  government 
could  have  no  communication  with  its  friends  and  forces. 
They  had  been  instructing  officers  for  years,  and  drilling 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  295 

troops  for  months.  They  knew  that  there  were  not  arms 
enough  in  the  North  to  furnish  an  army  competent  to  overcome 
them.  When,  therefore,  Mr.  Lincoln  called  for  his  seventy- 
five  thousand  men,  they  met  the  proclamation  with  a  howl  of 
derision. 

Massachusetts  was  the  first  state  to  respond  to  the  call  for 
troops. .  Governor  Andrew,  a  devoted  friend  of  the  adminis 
tration,  acted  as  promptly  then  in  the  support  of  the  govern 
ment  as  he  afterwards  labored  with  efficient  persistence  in  the 
destruction  of  the  rebellion;  but  the  credit  of  having  the 
troops  ready  for  motion  and  action  was  due  mainly  to  the  fore 
sight  of  Governor  N.  P.  Banks,  afterwards  a  Major  General 
in  the  federal  service.  He  was  Governor  Andrew's  prede 
cessor  ;  and  three  years  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebel 
lion  declared,  when  rallied  on  his  devotion  to  the  military,  that 
the  troops  would  be  called  upon  within  a  few  years  to  suppress 
a  slaveholders'  rebellion.  The  prediction  seemed  very  wild 
then,  and  probably  would  never  have  been  recalled  but  for  its 
exact  fulfillment.  The  troops  which  he  had  made  ready,  Gov 
ernor  Andrew,  coming  after  him,  promptly  dispatched. 

The  moral  effect  of  the  marching  of  the  Massachusetts 
Sixth  was  very  great.  The  hearts  of  the  people  were  stirred 
all  along  their  route  by  the  most  powerful  emotions.  They 
were  fed  and  applauded  at  every  considerable  station.  Wo 
men  thronged  around  the  cars,  bringing  to  them  their  Bibles 
and  other  gifts,  and  giving  them  their  tearful  blessing.  New 
York  city  was  much  impressed  by  their  sturdy  march  through 
the  great  metropolis.  It  was  a  new  sensation.  Men  forgot 
their  counting-rooms  and  ware-houses,  and  gave  themselves 
up  to  the  emotions  excited  by  so  prompt  and  gallant  an  exhi 
bition  of  patriotism.  But  the  tramp  of  the  Sixth  awoke  the 
young  men  everywhere  to  deeds  of  emulation.  Within  forty- 
eight  hours'  after  this  regiment  left  Boston,  two  more  regi 
ments  had  been  made  ready,  and  were  dispatched.  On  its 
way  through  Baltimore,  the  Sixth  Regiment  was  attacked  by 
a  mob,  carrying  a  secession  flag,  and  several  of  its  members 
killed  and  wounded.  This  outrage  added  new  fuel  to  the  fire. 


296  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  North  was  growing  angry.  The  idea  that  a  loyal  regi 
ment  could  not  pass  through  a  nominally  loyal  city,  on  its 
way  to  protect  the  national  capital,  without  fighting  its  way 
through,  aroused  a  storm  of  indignation  that  swept  over  the 
whole  of  loyal  America. 

Governor  Hicks  of  Maryland  and  Mayor  Brown  of  Balti 
more  were  frightened.  They  did  not  wish  to  have  any  more 
troops  taken  through  Baltimore.  Mr.  Lincoln  assured  them 
that  he  made  no  point  of  bringing  troops  through  that  city, 
and  that  he  left  the  matter  with  General  Scott,  who  had  said 
in  his  presence  that  the  troops  might  be  marched  around  Bal 
timore.  By  this  arrangement  a  collision  writh  the  people  of 
Baltimore  would  be  avoided,  unless  they  should  go  out  of  the 
way  to  seek  it.  "Now  and  ever,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  closing 
a  note  to  these  gentlemen,  "I  shall  do  all  in  my  power  for 
peace,  consistently  with  the  maintenance  of  the  government." 

Governor  Hicks  wished  the  quarrel  between  the  North  and 
South  referred  to  Lord  Lyons,  the  British  minister,  for  arbi 
tration.  To  this  Mr.  Seward,  speaking  for  the  President,  made 
a  most  admirable  reply,  stating  that  whatever  noble  sentiments, 
once  prevalent  in  Maryland,  had  been  obliterated,  the  Presi 
dent  would  be  hopeful,  nevertheless,  that  there  is  one  that 
would  forever  remain  there  and  everywhere.  That  sentiment 
is  that  no  domestic  contention  whatever,  that  may  arise  among 
the  parties  of  this  republic,  ought,  in  any  case,  to  be  referred 
to  any  foreign  arbitrament — least  of  all  to  the  arbitrament  of 
a  foreign  monarchy." 

Governor  Hicks  occupied,  without  doubt,  a  difficult  posi 
tion.  Out  of  ninety-two  thousand  votes  cast  at  the  presides 
tial  election,  only  a  little  more  than  two  thousand  had  been 
cast  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  More  than  forty-two  thousand  vote? 
had  been  given  for  Mr.  Breckinridge,  and  almost  an  equa? 
number  for  John  Bell.  Maryland  was  a  southern  slave-hold 
ing  state,  and  the  sympathies  of  four  persons  in  every  fivtf 
were  with  the  rebellion.  His  people  threatened  him,  whnV 
the  government  would  have  its  troops,  and  insisted  that  thej 
should  pass  through  Maryland. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  297 

After  the  passage  of  the  Massachusetts  Sixth,  the  mob  had 
control.  They  burnt  the  bridges  north  of  Baltimore,  so  as  to 
cut  off  the  means  of  access  to  the  city ;  and  then,  against  the 
protests  of  the  governor,  the  troops  were  forwarded  by  way 
of  Annapolis. 

Four  days  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  call  for  troops — on  the  day 
of  the  bloody  passage  of  the  Massachusetts  Sixth  through 
Baltimore — he  issued  a  proclamation  declaring  a  blockade  of 
the  ports  of  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Florida,  Mis 
sissippi,  Louisiana  and  Texas.  This  call  for  troops  and  the 
establishment  of  a  blockade  were  the  preliminaries  of  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  wars  that  have  occurred  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race — a  war  which,  for  the  number  of  men  in 
volved,  the  amount  of  spaces  traversed,  of  coast  line  block 
aded,  of  material  consumed  and  results  achieved,  surpasses 
all  the  wars  of  history. 

The  South  had  calculated  upon  the  disloyalty  of  Maryland. 
Nay,  more,  it  had  calculated  on  the  assistance  of  a  large 
party  at  the  North.  It  did  not  intend  to  be  confined  in  its 
warlike  operations  to  its  own  territory.  Northern  politicians, 
and  among  them  ex-President  Pierce,  had  told  them  it  would 
not  be.  It  expected  to  take  and  hold  Washington,  and  to  banish 
the  government ;  and  Maryland  had  an  important  part  to  play 
in  the  drama.  Jefferson  Davis  had  openly  declared  that  the 
North  and  not  the  South  should  be  the  field  of  battle.  The' 
rebel  Secretary  of  War  said  publicly  in  Montgomery  that 
while  no  man  could  tell  where  the  war  would  end,  he  would 
prophesy  that  the  flag  which  then  flaunted  the  breeze  at  Mont 
gomery  would  float  over  the  dome  of  the  old  capitol  at  Wash 
ington  before  the  first  of  May;  and  that  it  "might  float 
eventually  over  Fanueil  Hall  itself."  To  make  good  these 
predictions,  the  rebel  government  organized  and  sent  toward 
Virginia,  a  force  of  20,000  men,  calculating  upon  the  secession 
of  Virginia  which  had  not  then  joined  the  confederacy,  and 
which,  left  to  the  popular  choice,  never  would  have  taken  that 
fatal  step. 

The  attitude  of  the  two  governments  at  this  period  pre- 


298  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

sented  a  strong  contrast — a  most  instructive  contrast  to  all 
who  are  curious  to  mark  the  respective  degrees  of  responsi 
bility  attaching  to  them  for  the  war  which  followed.  The 
confederate  forces,  or  the  state  forces  in  the  confederate  inter 
est,  had  seized  and  occupied  nearly  every  fort,  arsenal  and 
dock-yard  belonging  to  the  United  States,  upon  the  southern 
territory.  The  rebel  government  had  opened  its  batteries 
upon  United  States  vessels,  and  had  bombarded  and  captured 
Fort  Sumter.  It  had  issued  letters  of  marque  to  distress  our 
commerce.  It  was  engaged  in  the  attempt  to  force  every  bor 
der  slave  state  into  the  support  of  its  schemes.  It  was  push 
ing  its  soldiers  northward  for  a  war  of  aggression;  and  its 
highest  representatives  were  publicly  boasting  that  their  flag 
would  soon  float  over  the  capitol  at  Washington,  and  that  the 
war  should  not  be  carried  on  upon  confederate  soil.  The  at 
titude  of  the  rebel  government  was  that  of  direct,  bitter,  de 
termined,  aggressive  hostility. 

Virginia  at  this  time  was  holding  a  state  convention  which,  to 
the  dismay  and  vexation  of  the  rebel  leaders,  was  controlled  by 
a  large  majority  of  Union  men.  Nothing  is  more  demonstrable 
than  that  the  choice  of  Virginia  was  to  remain  in  the  Union. 
These  delegates  were  chosen  as  Union  men;  yet  every  possi 
ble  influence  was  brought  to  bear  upon  them  to  cajole  or  co 
erce  them  into  disunion.  Threats,  misrepresentations,  prom 
ises  of  power,  social  proscription,  appeals  to  personal  and  sec 
tional  interest,  everything  that  treasonable  ingenuity  could 
suggest  were  resorted  to  to  urge  the  laggard  state  into  the 
vortex  of  secession.  The  fall  of  Sumter,  the  inaugural  of 
President  Lincoln  and  the  failure  of  the  confederate  com 
missioners  to  secure  a  treaty  were  used  in  different  ways  to 
inflame  southern  pride,  and  loosen  the  love  of  the  loyal 
members  from  the  old  Union.  The  President's  Inaugural  had 
been  so  misconstrued  as  to  convey  the  idea  that  his  policy  was 
one  of  coercion ;  and  the  convention  sent  a  committee  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  commissioned  to  ask  him  to  communicate  to  the  con 
vention  the  policy  which  the  federal  executive  intended  to 
pursue,  in  regard  to  the  confederate  states,  complaining  that 


LIFE    OF   ABKAHA3I   LINCOLN.  299 

great  and  injurious  uncertainty  prevailed  in  the  public  mind 
in  regard  to  this  policy. 

To  this  request  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  a  formal  answer ;  and  in 
this  answer  appears  the  contrast  to  which  attention  has  been 
called.  He  expressed  his  regret  and  mortification  that,  after 
having  stated  his  position  and  policy  as  plainly  as  he  was  able 
to  state  it  in  his  inaugural  address,  there  should  be  any  uncer 
tainty  on  the  subject.  "As  I  then  and  therein  said,"  the 
reply  proceeds,  " '  the  power  confided  in  me  will  be  used  to 
hold,  occupy  and  possess  property  and  places  belonging  to 
the  government,  and  to  collect  duties  and  imposts;  but,  be 
yond  what  is  necessary  for  these  objects,  there  will  be  no 
invasion,  no  using  of  force  against,  or  among,  people  any 
where.'  "  Fort  Sumter,  he  declared  it  his  purpose  to  repos 
sess,  with  all  the  other  places  seized  from  the  government, 
and  to  the  best  of  his  ability  he  should  repel  force  by  force. 
In  consequence  of  the  attack  on  Sumter,  it  was  possible  that 
he  should  cause  the  withdrawal  of  the  mails  from  the  states 
which  claimed  to  have  seceded.  He  closed  by  reiterating  the 
claim  of  the  government  upon  the  military  posts  and  property 
which  had  been  seized,  and  by  stating  that,  whatever  else  he 
might  do  for  the  purpose,  he  should  not  "attempt  to  collect 
the  duties  and  imposts  by  any  armed  invasion  of  any  part  of 
the  country,"  not  meaning  by  that,  however,  to  cut  himself 
off  from  the  liberty  to  land  a  force  necessary  to  relieve  a  fort 
upon  the  border  of  the  country. 

On  one  side  was  rampant  treason  and  a  policy  of  aggressive 
war ;  on  the  other,  patient  forbearance,  and  the  most  consider 
ate  care  not  to  take  any  step  not  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  indisputable  rights  of  the  government. 
No  man  in  the  United  States  who  pretended  to  be  loyal  could 
find  fault  with  Mr.  Lincoln  for  claiming  too  much,  or  being 
harsh  with  those  "erring  sisters"  who,  it  was  believed  by 
many,  might  be  gently  led  back  to  their  allegiance. 

On  the  seventeenth  of  April,  Virginia  went  out  of  the 
Union  by  a  convention  vote  of  eighty-eight  to  fifty-five ;  and 
on  the  twenty-first  of  May  the  confederate  capital  was  trans- 


300  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ferred  to  Richmond.  Thenceforth  Yirginia  went  straight 
toward  desolation.  Its  "sacred  soil"  was  from  that  hour 
devoted  to  trenches,  fortifications,  battle-fields,  military  roads, 
camps  and  graves. 

The  conciliatory  policy  of  Mr.  Lincoln  had  threatened  the 
ruin  of  the  confederacy ;  but  the  confederacy  made  war,  and 
then  appealed  to  the  border  states  for  sympathy  and  help. 
Governor  Pickens  of  South  Carolina  telegraphed  the  fall  of 
Sumter  to  the  Governor  of  Yirginia,  and  appealed  to  Yirginia 
to  know  what  she  was  going  to  do.  This  was  the  policy — to 
precipitate  war,  and  then  appeal  to  sectional  pride  and  interest 
for  sectional  assistance.  The  first  practical  show  of  sectional 
feeling  on  the  part  of  the  border  states  was  contained  in  the 
angry  and  insulting  responses  which  they  returned  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  call  for  troops.  .  These  responses  exhibited  the  sym 
pathies  of  their  Governors,  at  least.  Tennessee,  North  Caro 
lina  and  Arkansas  followed  Yirginia  out  of  the  Union,  and 
thus  the  confederate  cause  made  the  gain  it  sought. 

At  the  North  and  West  the  response  to  the  President's  call 
for  soldiers  was  rendered  with  enthusiastic  alacrity,  the  states 
vieing  with  each  other  in  the  office  of  raising,  fitting  out  and 
dispatching  troops.  Money  was  offered  to  the  government  by 
millions,  and  the  President  found  that  he  had  a  basis  for  a 
policy  in  the  national  feeling.  After  a  week  of  great  anxiety, 
Washington  was  relieved ;  and  while  troops  from  the  North 
were  rushing  southward,  a  still  larger  number  from  the  South 
were  pushing  northward  in  preparation  for  the  grand  struggle. 

One  of  the  most  encouraging  incidents  of  this  opening 
chapter  of  the  war  was  a  visit  of  Mr.  Douglas  to  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  in  which  the  former  gave  to  the  latter  the  assurance  of 
his  sympathy  and  support  in  the  war  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Douglas  was  an 
ambitious  man,  that  he  was  a  strong  party  man,  that  he  had 
battled  for  power  with  all  the  persistence  of  a  strong  and  de 
termined  nature,  and  that  he  was  a  sadly  disappointed  man. 
The  person  with  whom  he  had  had  his  hardest  fights  occupied 
the  chair  to  which  he  had  for  many  years  aspired. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  301 

On  Sunday,  the  fourteenth  of  April,  all  Washington  was 
alive  with  excitement  under  the  effect  of  the  news  of  the  fall 
of  Sumter.  Secessionists  could  not  conceal  their  joy,  and 
the  loyal  were  equally  sad  and  indignant.  Churches  were 
forsaken,  and  the  opening  of  the  war  was  the  only  topic  of 
thought  and  conversation.  Under  these  circumstances,  Hon. 
George  Ashmun  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  personally  on  the 
most  friendly  terms  with  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Douglas,  called 
on  the  latter  in  the  evening,  to  obtain  from  him  some  public 
declaration  that  should  help  the  government  in  its  extremity. 
He  found  the  Senator  surrounded  by  political  friends,  who 
were  soon  dismissed,  and  then,  for  an  hour,  the  two  men  dis 
cussed  the  relations  of  Mr.  Douglas  to  the  administration. 
The  first  impulse  of  the  Senator  was  against  Mr.  Ashrnun's 
wishes,  who  desired  him  to  go  to  the  President  at  once,  and  tell 
him  he  would  sustain  him  in  all  the  needful  measures  which 
the  exigency  demanded.  His  reply  was :  "  Mr.  Lincoln  has 
dealt  hardly  with  me,  in  removing  some  of  my  friends  from 
office,  and  I  don't  know  as  he  wants  my  advice  or  aid."  Mr. 
Ashmun  remarked  that  he  had  probably  followed  democratic 
precedents  in  making  removals,  but  that  the  present  question 
was  above  party,  and  that  it  was  now  in  the  power  of  Mr. 
Douglas  to  render  such  a  service  to  his  country  as  would  not 
only  give  him  a  title  to  its  lasting  gratitude,  but  would  show 
that  in  the  hour  of  his  country's  need  he  could  trample  all 
party  considerations  and  resentments  under  feet.  At  this 
juncture,  Mrs.  Douglas  came  in,  and  gave  the  whole  weight 
of  her  affectionate  influence  in  the  direction  in  which  Mr. 
Ashmun  was  endeavoring  to  lead  him.  He  could  not  with 
stand  the  influence  of  his  friend,  his  wife,  and  that  better  na 
ture  to  which  they  appealed.  He  gave  up  all  his  enmity,  all 
his  resentment,  cast  every  unworthy  sentiment  and  selfish 
feeling  behind  him,  and  cordially  declared  his  willingness  to 
go  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  offer  him  his  earnest  and  hearty  sup 
port. 

It  was  nearly  dark  when  the  two  gentlemen  started  for  the 
President's  house.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  alone,  and  on  learning 


302  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

their  errand  gave  them  a  most  cordial  welcome.  For  once, 
the  life-long  antagonists  were  united  in  heart  and  purpose. 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  the  proclamation,  calling  for  seventy-five 
thousand  troops,  which  he  had  determined  to  issue  the  next 
day,  and  read  it.  When  he  had  finished,  Mr.  Douglas  rose 
from  his  chair  and  said :  "  Mr.  President,  I  cordially  concur 
in  every  word  of  that  document,  except  that  instead  of  the 
call  for  seventy-five  thousand  men  I  would  make  it  two  hund 
red  thousand.  You  do  not  know  the  dishonest  purposes  of 
those  men  as  well  as  I  do."  Then  he  asked  the  President 
and  Mr.  Ashmun  to  look  at  a  map  of  the  United  States  which 
hung  at  one  end  of  the  room.  On  this  he  pointed  out,  in 
detail,  the  principal  strategic  points  which  should  be  at  once 
strengthened  for  the  coming  contest.  Among  the  more  prom 
inent  of  these  were  Fortress  Monroe,  Washington,  Harper's 
Ferry  and  Cairo.  He  then  enlarged  upon  the  firm,  warlike 
course  which  should  be  pursued,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  listened 
with  earnest  interest,  and  the  two  old  foes  parted  that  night 
thorough  friends,  perfectly  united  in  a  patriotic  purpose. 

After  leaving  the  President,  Mr.  Ashmun  said  to  Mr.  Doug 
las  :  "  You  have  done  justice  to  your  own  reputation  and  to 
the  President ;  and  the  country  must  know  it.  The  procla 
mation  will  go  by  telegraph  all  over  the  country  in  the  morn 
ing,  and  the  account  of  this  interview  must  go  with  it.  I 
shall  send  it,  either  in  my  own  language  or  yours.  I  prefer 
that  you  should  give  your  own  version."  Mr.  Douglas  said 
he  would  write  it ;  and  so  the  dispatch  went  with  the  message 
wherever  the  telegraph  would  carry  it,  confirming  the  waver 
ing  of  his  own  party,  and  helping  to  raise  the  tide  of  loyal 
feeling,  among  all  parties  and  classes,  to  its  flood.  The  dis 
patch,  the  original  of  which  Mr.  Ashmun  still  retains,  was  as 
follows : 

"Mr.  Douglas  called  on  the  President  this  evening,  and  had  an  inter 
esting  conversation  on  the  present  condition  of  the  country.  The  sub 
stance  of  the  conversation  was  that  while  Mr.  Douglas  was  unalterably 
opposed  to  the  administration  on  all  its  political  issues,  he  was  prepared 
to  sustain  the  President  in  the  exercise  of  all  his  constitutional  functions 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  303 

to  preserve  the  Union,  and  maintain  the  government  and  defend  the 
federal  capital.  A  firm  policy  and  prompt  action  were  necessary.  The 
capital  of  our  country  was  in  danger  and  must  be  defended  at  all  haz 
ards,  and  at  any  expense  of  men  or  money.  lie  spoke  of  the  present 
and  future  without  reference  to  the  past." 

The  writer  of  the  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  chronicler  of 
the  rebellion  will  find  few  more  delightful  tasks  than  that  of 
recording  the  unwearied  devotion  of  Mr.  Douglas  to  the  cause 
of  his  country  during  the  brief  remainder  of  his  life.  He 
was  done  with  his  dreams  of  power,  done  with  the  thought 
that  compromise  would  save  the  country,  and  done,  for  the 
time  at  least,  with  schemes  for  party  aggrandizement.  Six 
days  after  his  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  he  was  on  his  way 
home,  and  at  Bellair,  Ohio,  he  was  called  out  to  make  a 
speech.  All  parties  received  him  with  the  greatest  enthusi 
asm,  and  every  word  he  uttered  had  the  genuine  ring  of  pa 
triotism.  Subsequently  he  addressed  the  legislature  of  Illinois, 
at  Springfield,  and  his  own  fellow-citizens  at  Chicago.  The 
old  party  talk  and  the  old  party  policy  were  all  forgotten,  and 
only  the  sturdy,  enthusiastic  patriot  spoke.  In  one  of  the 
last  letters  he  ever  wrote  he  said:  "We  should  never  forget 
that  a  man  cannot  be  a  true  democrat  unless  he  is  a  loyal  pa 
triot."  In  May  he  became  sick,  and  on  the  third  of  June  he 
died.  In  the  low  delirium  that  attended  his  disease  he  talked 
of  nothing  but  his  country,  and  almost  his  last  coherent  words 
were  shaped  to  a  wish  for  its  honor  and  prosperity,  through 
the  defeat  and  dispersion  of  its  enemies. 

Mr.  Lincoln  felt  his  death  as  a  calamity.  He  had  been  of 
great  service  to  him  in  unveiling  the  designs  of  the  rebels,  and 
in  bringing  to  the  support  of  the  government  an  element  which 
a  word  from  him  at  a  favorable  moment  would  have  alienated. 
He  freely  said  that  he  regarded  Mr.  Douglas  as  one  of  his 
best  and  most  valuable  friends. 

To  those  who  are  curious  in  marking  strange  coincidences, 
it  will  be  interesting  to  remember  that  just  four  years  to  an 
hour  after  Mr.  Douglas  parted  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  the  close 
of  the  interview  that  has  been  described,  Mr.  Lincoln 


304  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

slain  by  an  assassin.  Both  died  witlf  a  common  purpose  up 
permost  in  their  minds,  one  in  the  threatening  morning  of  the 
rebellion,  and  the  other  when  its  sun  had  just  set  in  blood; 
and  both  sleep  in  the  dust  of  that  magnificent  state  almost 
every  rod  of  which,  within  a  quarter  of  a  century,  had  echoed 
to  their  contending  voices  as  they  expounded  their  principles 
to  the  people. 


CHAPTEK   XIX. 

THE  emergency  which  the  rebellion  forced  upon  the  gov 
ernment  found  that  government  no  less  prepared  to  meet  it 
than  it  found  the  loyal  people  of  the  country  wanting  in  mili 
tary  knowledge  and  experience.  The  people  were  so  eager 
to  furnish  men  and  supplies  that  they  at  once  became  impa 
tient  for  results.  No  one  among  them  seemed  to  doubt  that 
the  rebellion  might  be  crushed  in  a  few  months,  at  most. 
They  did  not  comprehend  the  almost  infinite  detail  of  a  war. 
Patience  was  a  virtue  which  it  took  four  years  to  teach  them ; 
and  when  every  man  connected  with  the  government  was 
making  all  the  efforts  possible  to  forward  the  preparations  for 
the  struggle,  the  popular  press — meaning  well,  but  much  mis 
apprehending  the  difficulties  of  the  situation — were  already 
finding  fault  with  the  tardiness  of  operations.  They  had  ap 
parently  forgotten  how  long  it  took  to  bring  the  Mexican  wrar 
to  a  successful  termination ; — indeed,  they  stood  in  a  very  differ 
ent  relation  to  this  war  from  that  which  they  had  held  toward 
the  Mexican  war.  That  was  a  war  of  the  government  against 
another  power ;  this  was  a  war  of  their  own,  against  domestie 
traitors  who  sought  to  overthrow  the  government.  Every 
loyal  man  had  a  direct  interest  in  the  war;  and  he  judged 
every  movement  and  every  delay  as  if  it  were  his  own  private 
enterprise.  There  were  inconveniences  in  this;  but,  in  this 
universal  personal  interest,  lay  the  secret  of  those  four  years 
of  popular  devotion  to  the  war  which  so  astonished  the  ob 
servers  of  other  lands,  and  made  ultimate  victory,  under 
Providence,  a  certainty  from  the  first. 
20 


306  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLX. 

^This  popular  impatience  was,  during  the  first  two  or  three 
years  of  the  war,  one  of  the  serious  difficulties  with  which 
the  administration  had  to  deal.  It  had  its  advantages  m  hold 
ing  to  vigilance  and  industry  all  who  were  in  responsible  po 
sitions,  but  it  had  disadvantages  in  sometimes  compelling  pre 
cipitancy  of  action,  and  in  breeding  in  the  administration  the 
idea  that  the  people  were  to  be  managed  like  children  whose 
food  should  be  carefully  prepared  in  the  departments  when 
ever  it  was  administered,  or  carefully  withheld  when  their 
stomachs  were  not  able  to  receive  it.  This  idea  of  the  people 
was  not  born  in  the  White  House.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  pro 
found  respect  for  the  people,  and  never  had  any  sympathy  with 
efforts  which  aimed  to  make  them  instruments  in  the  hands 
of  the  government,  or  which  ignored  the  fact  that  they  were 
the  source  of  all  his  power. 

During  the  latter  part  of  April,  certain  important  military 
operations  were  effected.  Washington,  the  safety  of  which 
was  the  first  consideration,  was  relieved  from  immediate  dan 
ger;  Fortress  Monroe,  commanding  the  water  gateway  of 
Virginia,  was  reinforced  and  held ;  the  government  works  at 
Harper's  Ferry  were  blown  up  and  burned  by  Lieutenant 
Jones,  in  command  of  a  company  of  regulars,  moved  by  the 
intelligence  of  an  advance  of  a  large  confederate  force ;  Cairo, 
Illinois,  an  important  strategic  point  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  rivers,  had  been  occupied  by  gov 
ernment  forces,  and  the  blockade  was  extended  so  as  to  em 
brace  the  states  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina.  Then  began 
organization.  On  the  twenty-seventh  of  April,  Adjutant 
General  Thomas  made  the  following  announcement  of  new 
military  departments:  First,  The  military  department  of 
Washington,  including  the  District  of  Columbia,  according  to 
its  original  boundary,  Fort  Washington  and  the  adjacent  coun 
try,  and  the  state  of  Maryland  as  for  as  Bladensburgh,  to  be 
under  the  charge  of  Colonel  Mansfield,  with  head-quarters  at 
Washington.  Second,  The  department  of  Annapolis,  head 
quarters  at  that  city,  and  including  the  country  for  twenty 
miles  on  either  side  of  the  railroad  between  Annapolis  an<J 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  307 

Washington,  under  command  of  General  B.  F.  Butler,  of  the 
Massachusetts  volunteers.  Third,  The  department  of  Penn 
sylvania,  including  that  state,  Delaware  and  all  of  Maryland 
not  included  in  the  other  departments  already  mentioned,  and 
with  Major  General  Patterson  in  command.  The  extension 
of  the  department  of  Washington  to  the  old  limits  of  the  dis 
trict  was  for  the  purpose  of  including  territory  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  defense  of  the  capital. 

On  the  following  tenth  of  May,  another  department  was 
added  to  this  list,  including  the  states  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and 
Illinois,  under  the  charge  of  General  George  B.  McClellan. 
The  object  of  this  department  was  to  maintain  a  defensive 
line  on  the  Ohio  River  from  Wheeling  to  Cairo. 

On  the  twenty-ninth  of  April,  Jefferson  Davis  convened  his 
Congress  at  Montgomery,  and  sent  them  a  message  wh*?h 
was  intended  to  be  a  justification  of  himself  and  his  cause, 
before  the  country  and  the  world.  It  was  a  document  of  rare 
ability,  in  its  plausible  presentation  of  the  favorite  southern 
doctrine  of  state  rights,  and  its  rehearsal  of  the  pretended 
wrongs  which  the  South  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the 
North.  It  must  have  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the 
great  multitude  of  minds  ready  to  receive  it  among  his  own 
people,  and  upon  statesmen  abroad  who,  from  the  first  opening 
of  the  American  difficulties,  manifested  a  strange  ignorance 
of  the  genius  and  structure  of  American  institutions. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  here  the  attempt  on  the  part,  both 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Davis,  to  argue  the  rightfulness  of 
their  respective  positions,  in  a  great  number  of  .their  state  pa 
pers.  Mr.  Lincoln's  old  intellectual  struggle  with  Mr.  Doug 
las  had  ceased,  and  Jefferson  Davis  was  now  his  antagonist — 
a  man  of  higher  culture  and  deeper  character. 

Mr.  Davis,  in  his  message,  assumed  the  role  of  the  wfonged 
party.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  he  had  seized  all  the 
property  of  the  United  States  upon  which  he  could  lay  his 
hands,  and  had,  by  bombardment,  compelled  the  surrender  of 
Fort  Sumter,  he  tried  to  shift  the  burden  of  opening  the  war 
upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  whose  call  for  troops,  weeks  after  a  con- 


308  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

federate  army  was  on  its  feet  and  actively  gathering  numbers, 
was  the  pretended  cause  of  the  convening  of  the  rebel  Con 
gress.  In  this  very  message,  indeed,  he  announces  that  there 
were  already  nineteen  thousand  men  in  different  forts,  and 
that  sixteen  thousand  were  on  their  way  to  Virginia. 

In  the  doctrine  of  state  rights  was  the  only  justification  of 
the  rebellion;  and  it  was  necessary  that  Mr.  Davis  should 
labor  to  establish  it.  With  him,  a  state  was  greater  than  the 
United  States.  The  state  was  sovereign,  and  the  Union  was 
essentially  subject.  Whenever,  therefore,  any  state  should 
have  a  plausible  pretext  for  dissolving  its  union  with  other 
states,  it  had  a  right  to  do  so.  Mr.  Davis  did  not  stop  to 
consider  that  he  could  not  establish  a  government  on  any  such 
basis  as  this,  and  that  the  doctrine  of  state  rights  would,  in 
the  end,  be  just  as  fatal  to  his  confederacy  as  he  was  endeav 
oring  to  make  it  to  the  United  States.  On  the  other  hand, 
Mr.  Lincoln  held  the  Union  sovereign  and  the  state  subject. 
A  state  had  no  right  to  coerce  a  nation  into  dissolution,  any 
more  than  a  county  had  a  right  to  force  a  state  into  dissolution. 
He  maintained  that  the  United  States  were  a  nation,  one  and 
indivisible,  and  that  any  attempt  to  dissolve  it  on  the  part  of 
a  state,  or  a  combination  of  states,  was  treason.  Here  was 
where  the  Union  and  the  new  confederacy  separated.  The 
confederacy  was  a  logical  result  of  the  doctrine  of  state  rights, 
and  its  destruction,  by  all  the  power  of  the  federal  government, 
was  the  logical  necessity  of  its  contravention.  Mr.  Lincoln 
believed  that  a  nation  had  a  fundamental  right  to  live,  and 
that  the  United  States  were  a  nation.  Mr.  Davis  believed 
that  the  United  States  were  not  a  nation — or,  if  one — that  it 
held  its  only  right  to  live  at  the  will  of  any  state  that  might 
choose  to  exercise  it. 

On'the  third  of  May,  Mr.  Lincoln  found  it  necessary  to  call 
for  forty-two  thousand  additional  volunteers,  to  serve  for  three 
years,  unless  sooner  discharged,  and  for  an  aggregate  of  twenty- 
two  thousand  seven  hundred  a-nd  fourteen  men  for  different 
classes  of  service  in  the  regular  army.  An  additional  call  for 
eighteen  thousand  men  to  serve  in  the  navy  was  also  made  in 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  309 

the  same  proclamation.  The  country  gave  quick  response  to 
this  call,  and  the  demand  for  army  volunteers  was  soon  an 
swered  to  excess. 

The  area  of  operations  was  rapidly  spreading.  Secessionists 
in  and  around  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  were  plotting  for  the  seizure 
of  the  arsenal  in  that  city,  but  Captain  (afterward  General) 
Lyon  promptly  thwarted  the  scheme,  and  secured  the  arms 
for  the  government  forces.  A  secession  camp,  forming  in  the 
same  city,  was  captured,  and  many  within  it  taken  prisoners. 
The  Governor  of  Missouri  was  disloyal,  and  did  what  he  could 
to  throw  that  state  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels ;  and  General 
Harney,  for  a  short  time  in  command  of  the  military  depart 
ment  of  the  West,  so  far  aided  his  schemes  as  to  agree  with 
Sterling  Price  that  the  whole  duty  of  maintaining  order  in  the 
state  should  be  intrusted  to  the  state  authorities.  Harney 
was  removed,  and  General  Lyon  put  in  his  place,  with  a  force 
for  which  he  found  abundant  employment,  and  at  the  head  of 
which  he  afterwards  fell — one  of  the  first  and  costliest  sacri 
fices  of  the  war. 

During  all  the  first  part  of  May,  a  secession  flag  floated 
over  a  building  in  Alexandria,  in  sight  of  the  capitol  at 
Washington;  the  rebel  forces  were  gathering  at  Manassas 
Junction,  and  rebel  troops  held  Harper's  Ferry.  On  the 
twenty-second  of  May,  General  Butler  took  command  of  the 
new  department  of  the  South,  with  head-quarters  at  Fortress 
Monroe.  Five  days  afterward,  he  issued  his  famous  order 
declaring  slaves  "contraband  of  war."  The  phrase  imbodied 
a  new  idea,  which  was  the  germ  of  a  new  policy,  as  well  as 
the  basis  of  a  new  name  for  the  freed  negro.  General  Butler 
had  under  command  here  about  twelve  thousand  men.  Con 
federate  troops  were  already  gathering  and  fortifying  in  the 
vicinity,  and  on  the  tenth  of  June  occurred  the  first  consider 
able  battle  of  the  war  at  Big  Bethel.  It  was  a  badly  man 
aged  affair  on  the  part  of  the  Union  forces ;  and,  in  the  excited 
and  expectant  state  of  the  public  mind,  produced  a  degree  of 
discouragement  in  the  country  quite  disproportioned  to  the 
importance  of  its  results.  Here  fell  Major  Winthrop,  a  young 


310  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

man  of  great  bravery  and  rare  literary  ability.  The  troopfc 
fought  well,  but  were  badly  handled.  Enough  was  learned, 
however,  of  the  bravery  of  the  Yankee,  to  give  prophecy  of 
fine  results  when  the  art  of  war  should  be  better  learned. 

These  comparatively  small  and  widely  separated  movements 
were  but  ripples  shot  out  into  the  coves  and  reaches  of  treason 
from  the  tidal  sweep  of  the  loyal  armies,  crowding  southward 
to  dash  against  the  grand  front  of  the  rebellion.  The  govern 
ment  had  no  lack  of  men ;  but  it  suffered  sadly  for  the  want 
of  arms  to  put  into  their  hands.  But  they  were  armed  in  one 
way  and  another — some  of  them  very  poorly.  The  impatient 
people  could  not  know  how  poorly,  Tbecause  it  would  expose 
the  weakness  of  the  government  to  the  enemy ;  so  they  clam 
ored  for  a  movement,  and  it  w'as  made.  On  the  twenty-fourth 
of  May,  General  Mansfield  began  his  passage  into  Virginia. 
The  gallant  and  lamented  Colonel  Ellsworth  was  sent  with 
his  regiment  of  Zouaves  to  Alexandria;  and  troops  to  the 
number  of  thirteen  thousand  were  moved  across  the  river, 
and  set  to  work  in  the  erection  of  forts  for  the  defense  of 
Washington.  Colonel  Ellsworth,  on  landing  at  Alexandria, 
without  resistance,  went  personally  to  the  Marshall  House, 
kept  by  James  Jackson,  and  mounting  to  the  top,  pulled  down 
the  secession  flag  with  which  Jackson  had  for  weeks  been  in 
sulting  the  authorities  at  Washington.  On  descending,  the 
owner  shot  him  dead,  and  was  in  turn  immediately  shot  dead 
by  a  private  named  Biownell,  who  accompanied  his  Colonel. 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  the  profound  impression  which 
the  death  of  this  young  and  enthusiastic  officer  produced  upon 
the  country.  He  was  among  the  first  the  nation  gave  to  the 
war,  and  his  name,  with  those  of  Greble  and  Winthrop,  who 
fell  at  Big  Bethel,  and  Lyon  who  afterward  fell  in  Missouri, 
were  embalmed  in  the  fresh  sensibilities  of  the  people,  and  re 
main  there,  fixed  and  fragrant,  while  thousands  of  those  since 
fallen  have  found  only  weary  and  sickened  hearts  to  rest  in, 
or  memories  too  sadly  crowded  with  precious  names  to  give 
them  room.  Ellsworth's  death  affected  Mr.  Lincoln  with  pe 
culiar  sorrow.  He  had  known  the  young  man  well.  At  one 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  311 

time,  Ellsworth  was  a  student  in  Lincoln  &  Herndon's  office ; 
and  he  accompanied  Mr.  Lincoln  on  his  journey  to  Washing 
ton.  The  body  of  the  young  martyr  was  borne  sadly  back 
to  "Washington,  and  was  received  into  the  White  House  itself, 
where  the  funeral  took  place,  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  assuming 
the  position  of  chief  mourner. 

After  the  accumulation  of  a  large  army  on  the  Virginia 
side  of  the  Potomac,  it  was  determined  to  push  forward  the 
forces  then  under  the  command  of  Major  General  McDowell, 
for  a  battle  with  the  rebel  army  which  had  been  gathered  at 
Manassas.  For  this  battle  each  side  had  been  preparing  with 
great  industry.  The  enemy  had  withdrawn  his  forces  from 
the  occupation  of  Harper's  Ferry,  and  that  important  point 
had  passed  into  federal  control.  From  every  quarter  he  gath 
ered  in  his  troops,  or  held  them  within  easy  call,  and  waited 
for  the  attack.  It  began  on  the  nineteenth,  and  ended  on  the 
twenty-first  of  July,  in  a  most  terrible  rout  of  the  Union 
forces.  The  whole  army  upon  which  the  President  and  the 
people  had  rested  such  strong  hope  and  expectation  was  broken 
in  pieces,  and  came  flying  back  toward  Washington,  panic- 
stricken,  worn  out,  disorganized  and  utterly  demoralized. 
They  had  fought  bravely  and  well ;  but  they  were  not  above  in 
fluences  that  have  affected  armies  since  time  began,  and  they 
yielded  to  fears  which  made  them  uncontrollable. 

The  loss  of  this  battle,  fought  under  the  pressure  of  popu 
lar  impatience,  cost  the  country  a  fearful  amount  of  sacrifice. 
It  greatly  encouraged  the  rebels,  their  sympathizers  abroad 
sent  up  a  shout  of  triumph,  and  the  loyal  masses  were  put  to 
such  a  test  of  their  patriotism  and  determined  bravery  as  they 
had  never  been  subjected  to.  The  work  had  all  to  be  done 
again,  under  the  most  discouraging  circumstances ;  but  when 
the  case  was  reviewed,  reason  was  found  for  gratitude  that  it 
hid  been  no  worse.  Washington,  at  the  close  of  the  battle 
at  Bull  Run,  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  rebels.  It  was  well 
that  they  did  not  know  this,  or  that,  if  they  knew  it,  they 
were  not  in  a  condition  to  push  on,  and  occupy  what  must 
have  fallen  into  their  hands. 


312  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Among  all  the  millions  to  whom  this  event  brought  sorrow, 
there  was  not  one  who  suffered  so  keenly  as  the  tender-hearted 
and  patient  man  who,  walking  back  and  forth  between  the 
White  House  and  the  War  Department,  felt  the  great  burden 
of  it  all  upon  his  own  shoulders.  He  had  need  of  the  full 
exercise  of  his  abounding  faith  in  Providence  to  sustain  him 
in  that  dark  and  perilous  hour.  He  could  not  but  feel  that 
peace  had  been  put  far  away  by  the  result  of  the  battle ;  but 
he  learned  afterwards  that  Providence  had  wise  and  beneficent 
designs  in  that  result.  Peace  conquered  then,  would  have 
been  peace  with  the  cause  of  the  war  retained.  Peace  then 
would  have  left  four  million  slaves  in  bondage.  Peace  then 
would  have  left  the  "house  divided  against  itself"  still,  with 
the  possibility  of  an  indefinite  extension  of  slavery.  It  was 
not  so  to  be.  A  thousand  plagues  were  yet  to  come  before 
the  public  mind  would  be  ready  to  let  the  bondman  go. 

Soon  after  the  original  movement  into  Virginia,  the  Post 
master-general  suspended  all  postal  service  in  the  seceded 
states ;  and  at  this  time  active  movements  commenced  in  Gen 
eral  McClellan's  department.  Under  the  auspices  of  Gov 
ernor  Magoffin  of  Kentucky — one  of  the  governors  who  had 
sent  back  an  insulting  response  to  the  President's  original  call 
for  troops — his  Inspector-general  Buckner  organized  a  force 
in  Kentucky,  which-  was  watched  with  much  anxiety  by  the 
loyal  people  on  the  other  side  of  the  Ohio,  because  it  was 
believed  to  be  inteixled  for  the  rebel  service.  Buckner  visited 
General  McClellan  at  Cincinnati  on  the  eighth  of  June,  and 
on  the  twenty-second  of  that  month  he  reported  to  Governor 
Mao-ofiin  the  terms  of  a  convention  into  which  he  had  entered 

o 

with  the  federal  general.  Briefly  he  reported  that  General 
McClellan  stipulated  that  Kentucky  should  be  regarded  by 
the  United  States  as  neutral  territory,  even  though  southern 
troops  should  occupy  it.  In  such  a  case,  the  United  States 
should  call  upon  Kentucky  to  remove  such  troops,  and  if  she 
should  fail  to  do  so  within  a  reasonable  time,  then  the  General 
claimed  the  same  right  of  occupation  accorded  to  the  southern 
troops,  and  promised  to  withdraw  so  soon  as  those  troops 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  313 

should  be  expelled.  Whether  this  was  a  true  statement  of 
the  agreement  or  not,  General  McClellan  did  nothing  incon 
sistent  with  it,  although  he  afterwards  denied  Buckner's  state 
ment  of  the  results  of  the  consultation.  The  occupation  and 
defense  of  important  points  upon  the  bank  of  the  river  oppo 
site  Cincinnati  were  abandoned,  and,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Crit- 
tenden,  he  'disclaimed  all  responsibility  for  the  intrusion  of  a 
body  of  General  Prentiss'  men,  who  had  landed  on  the  Ken 
tucky  shore  and  brought  away  a  secession  flag.  The  General, 
it  was  evident,  did  not  comprehend  the  character  of  the  re 
bellion,  or  he  failed  to  recognize  the  fact  that  in  such  a  struggle 
there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  the  neutrality  which  Ken 
tucky  was  professedly  desirous  to  maintain. 

The  tenderness  of  the  government,  as  well  as  of  the  gen 
erals  it  had  appointed,  toward  slavery,  is  worthy  of  note  at 
this  juncture.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  always  taken  great  pains  to 
show  that  he  respected  the  legal  rights  of  slavery  under  the 
Constitution.  The  republicans,  in  national  convention  and  in 
Congress,  had  done  the  same.  The  three  democratic  generals 
it  had  placed  in  command — Butler,  Patterson  and  McClellan — 
went  a  step  further,  and  promised  in  advance  that  they  would 
not  only  not  interfere  with  slavery,  but  would  assist  the  rebels 
in  putting  down  a  slave  insurrection.  General  Butler,  of  the 
three,  experienced  a  healthy  reaction  from  this  devotion  to 
slavery  at  an  early  day. 

Western  Virginia  was  loyal,  and,  on  the  seventeenth  of 
June,  in  convention  at  Wheeling,  repudiated  the  ordinance  of 
secession  passed  by  the  state  convention,  and  promptly  inau 
gurated  a  new  state  government,  with  Francis  H.  Pierpoint  for 
Governor.  This  was  the  first  step  toward  "reconstruction," 
and  il  was  taken  under  the  direct  sanction  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  doctrine  of  secession  thus  early  returned  to  plague  the 
inventors.  Rebel  forces  and  rebel  sympathizers  were  of  course 
in  Western  Virginia ;  and  a  campaign  was  inaugurated  there, 
early  in  June,  for  the  expulsion  of  these  forces  from  the  terri 
tory.  General  Rosecrans  and  General  Thomas  A.  Morris 
had  this  campaign  in  hand,  and,  on  the  twenty-third  of  June, 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

General  McClellan  arrived.  On  the  tenth  of  July,  a  skirmish 
was  had  with  the  rebels  at  Laurel  Hill,  and  two  days  later 
the  battle  of  Rich  Mountain  was  fought,  which  resulted  in  the 
defeat  and  surrender  of  the  rebel  Colonel  Pegram,  with  a 
thousand  men.  This  did  not  compass  the  successes  of  the 
day.  General  Garnett  who  was  bringing  supports  to  Gene-* 
ral  Pegram  was  pursued,  his  forces  routed,  and  himself  killed. 
"This  temporarily  cleaned  out  the  enemy  from  Western  Vir 
ginia.  General  McClellan's  dispatch  to  the  war  department 
announcing  this  very  grateful  victory  was  direct,  spirited  and 
well  written,  and  immediately  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
country.  These  successes  in  Western  Virginia,  together  with 
the  Napoleonic  manner  of  their  announcement,  paved  the  way 
to  that  .wonderful  popular  confidence  which  was  afterward  ac 
corded  to  the  commanding  general,  although  he  had  very  little 
to  do  in  planning  the  campaign  in  which  they  were  won,  or 
the  battles  by  which  they  were  secured. 

Congress,  according  to  the  proclamation  of  the  President, 
had  assembled  on  the  fourth  of  July,  and  was  of  course 
in  session  when  the  successes  in  Western  Virginia  were 
achieved,  as  well  as  when  the  rout  of  the  army  at  Bull 
Run  occurred.  Indeed,  the  presence  of  the  members  at 
Washington  added  to  the  pressure  which  precipitated  the 
movement  that  resulted  so  disastrously.  Some  of  the  mem 
bers  went  out  to  see  the  fight.  One  of  these  was  taken 
prisoner,  and  others  took  such  a  lesson  in  retreating  as  to 
cure  them  of  all  curiosity  concerning  battles  and  battle-fields 
forever. 

On  the  meeting  of  Congress,  the  President  communicated  a 

O  O  * 

message  which  was  received  with  profound  interest,  both  by 
Congress  and  the  whole  country.  The  opening  portions  of 
the  document  were  strictly  historical  of  the  events  of  the  re 
bellion  up  to  the  date  of  its  utterance ;  and  as  the  most  of 
these  events  have  already  found  record  in  these  pages,  their 
reproduction  is  not  necessary. 

By  opening  fire  upon  Sumter,  when  it  had  not  "a  gun  in 
sight,  or  in  expectancy,  to  return  their  fire,  save  only  the  few 


LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  315 

in  the  fort  sent  to  that  harbor  years  before  for  their  own  pro 
tection,"  he  declared  that  the  rebels  had  forced  upon  the  coun 
try  the  distinct  issue — immediate  dissolution  or  blood.  "And 
this  issue,"  the  message  proceeds,  "  embraces  more  than  the 
fate  of  these  United  States.  It  presents  to  the  whole  family 
of  man  the  question  whether  a  constitutional  republic  or  de 
mocracy — a  government  of  the  people  by  the  same  people- 
can  or  cannot  maintain  its  territorial  integrity,  against  its  own 
domestic  foes.  It  presents  the  question  whether  discontented 
individuals,  too  few  in  numbers  to  control  administration  ac 
cording  to  organic  law  in  any  case,  can  always,  upon  the  pre 
tences  made  in  this  case,  or  on  any  other  pretences,  or  arbi 
trarily,  without  any  pretence,  break  up  their  government,  and 
thus  practically  put  an  end  to  free  government  upon  the  earth. 
It  forces  us  to  ask,  'Is  there  in  all  republics,  this  inherent  and 
fatal  weakness?'  'Must  a  government,  of  necessity,  be  too 
strong  for  the  liberties  of  its  own  people,  or  too  weak  to  main 
tain  its  own  existence  ? ' ' 

The  attempt  of  some  of  the  border  states  to  maintain  a  sort 
of  armed  neutrality — as  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Kentucky — 
the  arming  of  those  states  to  keep  the  forces  on  either  side 
from  passing  over  their  territory — he  declared  would  be  dis 
union  completed,  if  for  a  moment  entertained.  It  would  be 
building  "  an  impassable  wall  along  the  line  of  separation,  and 
yet,  not  quite  an  impassable  one,  for,  under  the  guise  of  neu 
trality,  it  would  tie  the  hands  of  Union  men,  and  freely  pass 
supplies  from  among  them  to  the  insurrectionists,  which  it 
could  not  do  as  an  open  enemy.  At  a  stroke  it  would  take 
all  the  trouble  off  the  hands  of  secession,  except  only  what 
proceeds  from  the  external  blockade." 

Soon  after  the  first  call  for  militia,  liberty  was  given  to  the 
commanding  general  to  suspend  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  in  certain  cases,  or  uto  arrest  and  detain  with 
out  resort  to  the  ordinary  processes  of  law  such  individuals  as 
he  might  deem  dangerous  to  the  public  safety."  Although 
this  liberty  was  indulged  very  sparingly,  there  were  not 
wanting  men  unfriendly  to  the  administration  who  made  it  the 


316  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

subject  of  factious  complaint.     This  fact  Mr.  Lincoln  noticed, 
and  this  was  his  defense :  ^  • 

"  The  whole  of  the  laws  which  were  required  to  be  faithfully  executed 
were  being  resisted,  and  failing  of  execution,  in  nearly  one-third  of  the 
states.  Must  they  be  allowed  to  finally  fail  of  execution,  even  had  it 
been  perfectly  clear  that  by  the  use  of  the  means  necessary  to  their 
execution  some  single  law,  made  in  such  extreme  tenderness  of  the  cit 
izen's  liberty,  that,  practically,  it  relieves  more  of  the  guilty  than  the 
innocent,  should,  to  a  very  limited  extent,  be  violated?  To  state  the 
question  more  directly:  are  all  the  laws  but  one  to  go  unexecuted,  and 
the  government  itself  go  to  pieces,  lest  that  one  be  violated?  Even 
in  such  a  case,  would  not  the  official  oath  be  broken,  if  the  government 
should  be  overthrown  when  it  was  believed  that  disregarding  the  single 
law  would  tend  to  preserve  it  ?  But  it  was  not  believed  that  this  ques 
tion  was  presented.  It  was  not  believed  that  any  law  was  violated. 
The  provision  of  the  Constitution  that  'the  privilege  of  the  writ  of 
lialcas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless,  when  in  cases  of  rebellion 
or  invasion,  the  public  safety  may  require  it,'  is  equivalent  to  a  provi 
sion — is  a  provision — that  such  privilege  may  be  suspended  when,  in  case 
of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  does  require  it.  Jt  was  de 
cided  that  we  have  a  case  of  rebellion,  and  that  the  public  safety  does 
require  the  qualified  suspension  of  the  privilege  of  the  writ,  which  was 
authorized  to  be  made.  Now  it  is  insisted  that  Congress,  and  not  the 
Executive,  is  invested  with  this  power.  But  the  Constitution  itself  is 
silent  as  to  which  or  who  is  to  exercise  this  power;  and  as  the  provision 
was  plainly  made  for  a  dangerous  emergency,  it  cannot  be  believed  the 
framers  of  the  instrument  intended  that,  in  every  case,  the  danger  should 
run  its  course  until  Congress  could  be  called  together,  the  very  assem 
bling  of  which  might  be  prevented,  as  was  intended  in  this  case  by  the 
rebellion." 

After  recommending  that  Congress  make  the  contest  a  short 
and  decisive  one,  by  placing  at  the  control  of  the  government 
four  hundred  thousand  men  and  four  hundred  million  dollars, 
and  stating  that  a  right  result  at  that  time  would  be  worth 
more  to  the  world  than  ten  times  the  men  and  ten  times  the 
money,  Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  the  doctrine  of  state  rights, 
state  sovereignty,  the  right  of  secession,  &c.,  and  argued  ^ 
against  it  at  length,  doubtless  as  a  reply  to  the  message  of 
Mr.  Davis,  and  to  place  before  the  world,  whose  governments 
and  peoples  were  sitting  in  judgment  on  the  case,  the  grounds 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN".  317 

of  the  national  struggle  with  the  rebellion.     The  passage  is 
too  important  to  be  abbreviated : 

"It  might  seem,  at  first  thought,  to  be  of  little  difference  whether  the 
present  movement  at  the  South  be  called  "secession,"  or  "rebellion." 
The  movers,  however,  will  understand  the  difference.  At  the  begin 
ning,  they  knew  they  could  never  raise  their  treason  to  any  respectable 
magnitude  by  any  name  which  implies  violation  of  law.  They  knew 
their  people  possessed  as  much  of  moral  sense,  as  much  of  devotion  to 
law  and  order,  and  as  much  pride  in,  and  reverence  for  the  history  and 
government  of  their  common  country,  as  any  other  civilized  and  patri 
otic  people.  They  knew  they  could  make  no  advancement  directly  in 
the  teeth  of  these  strong  and  noble  sentiments.  Accordingly,  they 
commenced  by  an  insidious  debauching  of  the  public  mind.  They  in- 
rented  an  ingenious  sophism,  which,  if  conceded,  was  followed  by  per 
fectly  logical  steps,  through  all  the  incidents,  to  the  complete  (Jest-ruction 
of  the  Union.  The  sophism/  itself  is,  that  any  state  of  the  Union  may, 
consistently  with  the  national  Constitution,  and  therefore  lawfully  and 
peacefully,  withdraw  from  the  Union  without  the  consent  of  the  Union, 
or  of  any  other  state.  The  little  disguise  that  the  supposed  right  is  to 
be  exercised  only  for  just  cause,  themselves  to  be  the  sole  judges  of  its 
justice,  is  too  thin  to  merit  any  notice. 

*'  With  rebellion  thus  sugar-coated  they  have  been  drugging  the  pub 
lic  mind  of  their  section  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  until  at  length 
they  have  brought  many  good  men  to  a  willingness  to  take  up  arms 
against  the  government  the  day  after  some  assemblage  of  men  have 
enacted  the  farcical  pretence  of  taking  their  state  out  of  the  Union, 
who  could  have  been  brought  to  no  such  thing  the  day  before. 

"This  sophism  derives  much,  perhaps  the  whole,  of  its  currency  from 
the  assumption  that  there  is  some  omnipotent  and  sacred  supremacy 
pertaining  to  a  state — to  each  state  of  our  Federal  Union.  Our  states 
have  neither  more  nor  less  power  than  that  reserved  to  them  in  the 
Union  by  the  Constitution — no  one  of  them  ever  having  been  a  state 
out  of  the  Union.  The  original  ones  passed  into  the  Union  even  before 
they  cast  off  their  British  colonial  dependence ;  and  the  new  ones  each 
came  into  the  Union  directly  from  a  condition  of  dependence,  excepting 
Texas.  And  even  Texas,  in  its  temporary  independence,  was  never 
designated  a  state.  The  new  ones  only  took  the  designation  of  states 
on  coming  into  the  Union,  while  that  name  was  first  adopted  by  the  old 
ones  in  and  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Therein  the  "  United 
Colonies"  were  declared  to  be  "free  and  independent  states;"  but,  even 
then,  the  object  plainly  was  not  to  declare  their  independence  of  one 
another,  or  of  the  Union,  but  directly  the  contrary,  as  their  mutual 
pledge  and  their  mutual  action  before,  at  the  time,  and  afterwards, 


318  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

abundantly  show.  The  express  plighting  of  faith  by  each  and  all  of 
the  original  thirteen  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  two  years  later, 
that  the  Union  shall  be  perpetual,  is  most  conclusive.  Having  never 
been  states,  either  in  substance  or  in  name,  outside  of  the  Union,  whence 
this  magical  omnipotence  of  "state  rights,"  asserting  a  claim  of  power 
to  lawfully  destroy  the  Union  itself?  Much  is  said  about  the  "sover 
eignty"  of  the  states;  but  the  word  even  is  not  in  the  national  Consti 
tution;  nor,  as  is  believed,  in  any  of  the  state  constitutions.  What  is 
"sovereignty"  in  the  political  sense  of  the  term?  Would  it  be  far 
wrong  to  define  it  "  a  political  community  without  a  political  superior?" 
Tested  by  this,  no  one  of  our  states  except  Texas,  ever  was  a  sover 
eignty.  And  even  Texas  gave  up  the  character  on  coining  into  the 
Union;  by  which  act  she  acknowledged  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  the  laws  and  treaties  of  the  United  States  made  in  pursu 
ance  of  the  Constitution,  to  be  for  her  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 
The  states  have  their  status  in  the  Union,  and  they  have  no  other  legal 
status.  If  they  break  from  this,  they  can  only  do  so  against  law  and  by 
revolution.  The  Union,  and  not  themselves,  separately,  procured  their 
independence  and  their  liberty.  By  conquest  or  purchase  the  Union  gave 
e«ach  of  them  whatever  of  independence  or  liberty  it  has.  The  Union 
is  older  than  any  of  the  states,  and,  in  fact,  it  created  them  as  states. 
Originally  some  dependent  colonies  made  the  Union,  and,  in  turn,  the 
Union  threw  off  their  old  dependence  for  them,  and  made  them  states, 
such  as  they  are.  Not  one  of  them  ever  had  a  state  constitution  inde 
pendent  of  the  Union.  Of  course,  it  is  not  forgotten  that  all  the  new 
states  framed  their  constitutions  before  they  entered  the  Union;  never 
theless  dependent  upon,  and  preparatory  to,  coming  into  the  Union. 

"  Unquestionably  the  states  have  the  powers  and  rights  reserved  to 
them  in  and  by  the  national  Constitution :  but  among  these,  surely,  are 
not  included  all  conceivable  powers,  however  mischievous  or  destruct 
ive  ;  but,  at  most,  such  only  as  were  known  in  the  world,  at  the  time, 
as  governmental  powers;  and,  certainly,  a  power  to  destroy  the  Govern 
ment  itself  had  never  been  known  as  a  governmental — as  a  merely 
administrative  power.  This  relative  matter  of  national  power  and 
state  rights,  as  a  principle,  is  no  other  than  the  principle  of  generality 
and  locality.  Whatever  concerns  the  whole  should  be  confided  to  the 
whole — to  the  general  government;  while  whatever  concerns  only  the 
state  should  be  left  exclusively  to  the  state.  This  is  all  there  is  of 
original  principle  about  it.  Whether  the  national  Constitution  in  de 
fining  boundaries  between  the  two  has  applied  the  prin|ljple  with  exact- 
accuracy,  is  not  to  be  questioned.  We  are  all  bound  by  that  defining, 
without  question. 

"What  is  now  combated,  is  the  position  that  secession  is  consistent 
with  the  Constitution — is  lawful  and  peaceful.  It  is  not  contended  that 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  319 

there  is  any  express  law  for  it;  and  nothing  should  ever  be  implied  as 
law  which  leads  to  unjust  or  absurd  consequences.  The  nation  pur 
chased  with  money  the  countries  out  of  which  several  of  these  states 
were  formed ;  is  it  just  that  they  shall  go  off  without  leave  and  without 
refunding?  The  nation  paid  very  large  sums  (in  the  aggregate,  I  be 
lieve,  nearly  a  hundred  millions)  to  relieve  Florida  of  the  aboriginal 
tribes;  is  it  just  that  she  shall  now  be  off  without  consent,  or  without 
making  any  return?  The  nation  is  now  in  debt  for  money  applied  to 
the  benefit  of  these  so-called  seceding  states  in  common- with  the  rest; 
is  it  just  either  that  creditors  shall  go  unpaid,  or  the  remaining  states 
pay  the  whole  ?  A  part  of  the  present  national  debt  was  contracted  to 
pay  the  old  debts  of  Texas;  is  it  just  that  she  shall  leave  and  pay  no 
part  of  this  herself  ? 

"Again,  if  one  state  may  secede,  so  may  another;  and  when  all  shall 
have  seceded,  none  is  left  to  pay  the  debts.  Is  this  quite  just  to  credi 
tors  ?  Did  we  notify  them  of  this  sage  view  of  ours  when  we  borrowed 
their  money?  If  we  now  recognize  this  doctrine  by  allowing  the  seced- 
ers  to  go  in  peace,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  we  can  do  if  others  choose 
to  go,  or  to  extort  terms  upon  which  they  will  promise  to  remain. 

"  The  seceders  insist  that  our  Constitution  admits  of  secession.  They 
have  assumed  to  make  a  national  constitution  of  their  own,  in  which, 
of  necessity,  they  have  either  discarded  or  retained  the  right  of  seces 
sion,  as  they  insist  it  exists  in  ours.  If  they  have  discarded  it,  they 
thereby  admit  that  on  principle  it  ought  not  to  exist  in  ours ;  if  they 
have  retained  it,  by  their  own  construction  of  ours  they  show  that,  to 
be  consistent,  they  must  secede  from  one  another  whenever  they  shall 
find  it  the  easiest  way  of  settling  their  debts,  or  effecting  any  other 
selfish  or  unjust  object.  The  principle  itself  is  one  of  disintegration, 
and  upon  which  no  government  can  possibly  endure. 

"  If  all  the  states  save  one  should  assert  the  power  to  drive  that  one 
out  of  the  Union,  it  is  presumed  the  whole  class  of  seceder  politicians 
would  at  once  deny  the  power,  and  denounce  the  act  as  the  greatest 
outrage  upon  state  rights.  But  suppose  that  precisely  the  same  act, 
instead  of  being  called  '  driving  the  one  out/  should  be  called '  the  seced 
ing  of  the  others  from  that  one,'  it  would  be  exactly  what  the  seceders 
claim  to  do,  unless,  indeed,  they  make  the  point  that  the  one,  because  it  is 
a  minority,  may  rightfully  do  what  the  others,  because  they  are  a  ma 
jority,  may  not  rightfully  do.  These  politicians  are  subtle,  and  profound 
on  the  rights  of  minorities.  They  are  not  partial  to  that  power  which 
made  the  Constitution,  and  speaks  from  the  preamble,  calling  itself 'We, 
the  people.'" 

The  popular  government  of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Lincoln 
said,  had  been  called  an  experiment.  Two  joints  of  the  ex- 


320  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

periment  had  already  been  settled ;  the  government  had  been 
established,  and  it  had  been  administered.  One  point  remained 
to  be  established :  its  successful  maintenance  against  a  formid 
able  internal  attempt  to  overthrow  it.  It  remained  to  be  dem 
onstrated  to  the  world  that  those  who  could  fairly  carry  an 
election  could  also  suppress  a  rebellion — "that  ballots  are  the 
rightful  and  peaceful  successors  to  bullets,  and  that  when  bal 
lots  have  fa'irly  and  constitutionally  decided,  there  can  be  no 
successful  appeal  back  to  bullets — that  there  can  be  no  suc 
cessful  appeal,  except  to  ballots  themselves,  at  succeeding 
elections."  Another  justification  of  the  wTar  in  which  he  was 
engaged  he  found  in  that  article  of  the  Constitution  which 
provides  that  "the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every 
state  in  this  Union  a  republican  form  of  government."  If  a 
state  might  lawfully  go  out  of  the  Union,  it  might  also,  having 
gone  out,  discard  the  republican  form  of  government,  "so  that 
to  prevent  its  going  out  is  an  indispensable  means  to  the  end 
of  maintaining  the  guarantee  mentioned;  and  when  an  end  is 
lawful  and  obligatory,  the  indispensable  means  to  it  are  also 
lawful  and  obligatory." 

Congress  was  ready  to  do  all  that  the  President  desired, 
and  even  more.  Instead  of  four  hundred  million  dollars,  they 
placed  at  his  disposal  five  hundred  millions,  and  instead  of 
confining  his  levy  of  troops  to  four  hundred  thousand,  they 
gave  him  liberty  to  call  out  half  a  million.  They  also  legal 
ized  all  the  steps  he  had  thus  far  taken  for  the  suppression 
of  the  rebellion,  and  labored  in  all  ways  to  strengthen  his 
hands  and  encourage  his  heart.  These  measures  were  passed 
in  the  presence,  and  against  the  protest,  of  secessionists,  who 
still  held  their  places  in  both  houses  of  Congress.  Burnett 
of  Kentucky  and  Reid  and  Norton  of  Missouri,  in  the  House, 
afterwards  proved  their  treason  by  engaging  directly  in  the 
rebellion.  BrecMnridge  and  .Powell  of  Kentucky  and  Polk 
and  Johnson  of  Missouri,  in  the  Senate,  were  known  at  the 
time  to  be  anything  but  loyal.  And  they  had  sympathizers 
who,  under  any  other  government,  would  have  been  arrested 
and  held,  if  no^  treated  with  still  greater  severity.  Vallanr 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  321 

di<rham  of  Ohio  was  afterwards  sent  into  the  rebel  lines  for 

o 

treason,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Kennedy  of  Maryland, 
Bayard  of  Delaware,  Bright  of  Indiana,  and  Ben  AVood  of 
New  York  had  personal  reason  for  feeling  that  he  had  been 
very  harshly  used.  Yet  it  was  best  that  these  men  should  be 
where  they  were,  to  bicker  and  bite,  and  illustrate  the  spirit 
of  that  incorporate  infamy — a  slaveholders'  rebellion.  Such 
toleration  illustrated  alike  the  strength  and  moderation  of  the 
government.  Some  of  these  men  were  permitted  to  rise  in 
the  places  they  had  justly  forfeited,  and,  with  perjured  lips,  to 
talk  treason — to  complain  of  arbitrary  arrests  when  they  were 
suffered  to  go  and  come,  and  scheme  and  brawl  with  perfect 
liberty,  in  the  streets  of  the  national  capital. 

There  was  plenty  of  treasonable  talk  in  Congress,  but  no 
treasonable  action.  The  party  friends  of  the  government 
were  in  a  majority,  and  they  j^ere  aided  by  numbers  of  loyal 
democrats.  The  schemes  of  finance  recommended  by  Mr* 
Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  were  adopted  essen 
tially  as  recommended,  a  moderate  confiscation  act  was  passed, 
and  a  resolution  adopted  by  the  House — introduced  by  Mr. 
Crittenden  of  Kentucky — that  the  war  had  been  forced 
upon  the  country  by  the  disunionists  of  the  southern  states, 
then  in  revolt  against  the  constitutional  government  and 
in  arms  around  the  capital:  that  Congress,  banishing  all 
feeling  of  passion  or  resentment,  would  recollect  only  its  duty 
to  the  whole  country:  that  the  war  was  not  waged  on  the 
part  of  the  government  in  the  spirit  of  oppression,  nor  for 
any  purpose  of  conquest  or  subjugation,  nor  purpose  of  over 
throwing  or  interfering  with  the  rights  or  established  institu 
tions  of  the  states ;  but  to  defend  and  maintain  the  supremacy 
of  the  Constitution,  and  to  preserve  the  Union,  with  all  the 
dignities,  equality  and  rights  of  the  several  states  unimpaired : 
and  that  as  soon  as  those  objects  were  accomplished,  the  war 
ought  to  cease.  During  the  session,  Mr.  Trumbull  of  Illinois 
introduced  a  bill  in  the  Senate  to  emancipate  all  the  slaves  in 
the  rebel  states.  This  was  a  prophecy  and  a  threat  of  what 
would  come  as  the  reward  of  rebel  contumacy. 
21 


322  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  session  closed 'on  the  sixth  day  of  August,  having  lasted 
but  little  more  than  a  month.  The  President  found  himself 
abundantly  supported,  and  the  means  in  his  hands  for  carry 
ing  on  the  great  contest. 

The  message  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  this  extra  session  of  Con 
gress,  taken  with  his  inaugural,  did  much  to  overcome  the 
unpleasant  impressions  produced  by  the  speeches  he  made  on 
his  way  to  Washington.  There  is  no  question  that  those 
speeches  seriously  damaged  him,  and  shook  the  confidence  of 
the  country  in  his  ability.  The  inaugural  and  the  message 
had  the  old  ring  in  them,  and  betrayed  something  of  those 
qualities  which  had  originally  attracted  the  country  to  him. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  he  did  not  spend  much  time  in 
writing  his  messages.  His  later  efforts  in  this  line  did  not 
bear  always  so  many  marks  of  painstaking  as  the  first.  He 
had  a  great  aversion  to  what  Jie  called  "machine  writing," 
and  always  used  the  fewest  words  possible  to  express  his 
meaning.  Mr.  Defrees,  the  public  printer,  an  intimate  per 
sonal  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  testifies  that  he  made  the  fewest 
corrections  in  his  proof  of  any  man  he  ever  knew.  He  knew 
nothing  of  the  rules  of  punctuation,  yet  the  manuscripts  of 
very  few  of  our  public  men  are  as  well  punctuated  as  his  uni 
formly  were,  though  his  use  of  commas  was  excessive. 

Mr.  Defrees,  being  on  easy  terms  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  took 
it  upon  him  to  suggest  with  relation  to  his  first  message  that 
he  was  not  preparing  a  campaign  document,  or  delivering  a 
stump  speech  in  Illinois,  but  constructing  an  important  state 
paper,  that  would  go  down  historically  to  all  coming  time ; 
and  that,  therefore,  he  did  not  consider  the  phrase,  "sugar- 
coated,"  which  he  had  introduced,  as  entirely  a  becoming  and 
dignified  one.  ""Well,  Defrees,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  good  na- 
turedly,  "if  you  think  the  time  will  ever  come  when  the 
people  will  not  understand  what  " sugar-coated "  means,  I'll 
alter  it;  otherwise,  I  think  I'll  let  it  go."  To  make  people 
understand  exactly  what  he  meant,  was  his  grand  aim.  Be 
yond  that,  hahad  not  the  slightest  ambition  to  go. 

To  close  tnis  chapter,  it  only  remains  to  record  the  relief 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  323 

of  Major  General  McDowell,  a  worthy  but  .unfortunate  officer, 
and  the  appointment  of  General  McClellan  to  the  command 
of  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  The  country  had  been  attracted 
to  McClellan  by  his  dispatches  from  Western  Virginia. 
General  Scott  favored  him,  and  to  him  was  accordingly  as 
signed  the  work  of  re-organizing  the  shattered  army.  The 
public  hope  was  ready  to  cling  somewhere,  and  the  public 
heart  gave  itself  to  McClellan  with  an  enthusiastic  devotion 
rarely  accorded  to  any  man.  lEs  pictures  were  in  all  the 
windows  of  the  shops,  and  on  all  the  center  tables  of  all  the 
drawing-rooms  in  the  land.  If  he  had  done  but  little  before 

o 

to  merit  this  confidence — if  he  did  but  little  afterwards  to  jus 
tify  it — he,  at  least,  served  at  that  time  to  give  faith  to  the 
people,  and  furnish  a  rallying  point  for  their  patriotic  service. 
For  three  months,  under  his  faithful  and  assiduous  supervi 
sion,  the  organization  of  troops  went  on,  until  he  had  at  his 
command  a  magnificent  army  which  needed  only  to  be  prop 
erly  led  to  be  victorious. 


CHAPTEE   XX. 

THE  victory  of  the  rebels  at  Bull  Run  was  singularly  barren 
of  material  results  to  them.  It  did  not  encourage  the  disloyal 
masses  of  the  country  more  than  it  filled  with  new  determin 
ation  the  loyal  people  who  opposed  them.  They  were  as 
badly  punished  as  the  troops  they  had  defeated,  and  could 
take  no  advantage  of  their  victory;  and  they  failed  to  bring 
nearer  the  day  of  foreign  recognition  for  which  they  were 
laboring  and  lon<nn£;. 

o  o      o 

This  matter  of  foreign  recognition  was  a  very  important 
one  to  Mr.  Davis  and  his  confederates.  That  he  expected  it, 
and  had  reason  to  expect  it,  there  is  no  question.  Hostilities 
had  hardly  opened  when  the  British  and  French  governments, 
acting  in  concert,  recognized  the  government  established  at 
Montgomery  as  a  belligerent  power.  If  this  was  not  a 
pledge  of  friendliness,  and  a  promise  of  recognition,  nothing 
could  have  been,  for  the  proceeding  was  unprecedented.  The 
United  States  was  a  power  in  friendly  intercourse  with  these 
two  great  powers  of  Europe,  through  complete  diplomatic  re 
lations.  Without  a  word  of  warning,  without  a  victory  on 
the  part  of  the  insurgents,  without  a  confederate  fleet  afloat, 
with  only  a  half  of  the  slave  states  in  insurrection,  these 
two  governments,  with  the  most  indecent  haste,  gave  their 
moral  support  to  the  enemies  of  the  United  States  by  recog 
nizing  a  portion  of  its  people  engaged  in  an  insurrection  which 
the  government  had  not  yet  undertaken  to  suppress — as  a 
belligerent  power,  with  just  the  same  rights  on  land  and  sea 
as  if  they  were  an  established  government. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  325 

But  for  the  decided  position  assumed  by  Mr.  Lincoln, 
through  his  accomplished  Secretary,  Mr.  Seward,  the  rebel 
government  would  certainly  have  had  an  early  and  full  recog 
nition.  England  and  France  were,  without  doubt,  very 
friendly  to  the  United  States;  but  they  would  have  been 
friendlier  to  two  governments  than  to  one.  In  his  instruc 
tions  to  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  on  his  departure  to  rep 
resent  the  government  at  the  court  of  St.  James,  Mr.  Seward 
said: 

"  If,  as  the  President  does  not  at  all  apprehend,  you  shall  unhappily 
find  Her  Majesty's  government  tolerating  the  application  of  the  so-called 
seceding  states,  or  wavering  about  it,  you  will  not  leave  them  to  suppose, 
for  a  moment,  that  they  can  grant  that  application,  and  remain  the 
friends  of  the  United  States.  You  may  even  assure  them  promptly,  in 
that  case,  that,  if  they  determine  to  recognize,  they  may,  at  the  same 
time,  prepare  to  enter  into  an  alliance  with  the  enemies  of  this  republic. 
You  alone  will  represent  your  country  at  London,  and  you  will  represent 
the  whole  of  it  there.  When  you  are  asked  to  divide  that  duty  with 
others,  diplomatic  relations  between  the  government  of  Great  Britain 
and  this  government  will  be  suspended,  and  will  remain  so  until  it  shall 
be  seen  which  of  the  two  is  most  strongly  intrenched  in  the  confidence 
of  their  respective  nations  and  of  mankind." 

Against  the  recognition  of  the  rebels  as  a  belligerent  power, 
Mr.  Adams  was  directed  to  make  a  decided  and  energetic 
protest;  and  when,  on  the  fifteenth  of  June,  the  representa 
tives  of  England  and  France  at  Washington  applied  to  Mr. 
Seward  for  the  privilege  of  reading  to  him  certain  instructions 
they  had  received  from  their  governments,  he  declined  to  hear 
them  officially  until  he  had  had  the  privilege  of  reading  them 
privately.  This  privilege  was  accorded  to  him ;  and  then  he 
declined  to  receive  any  official  notice  of  the  documents.  Four 
days  afterwards,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Adams,  informing 
him  of  the  nature  of  the  instructions,  which  were  prefaced 
by  a  statement  of  the  decision  of  the  British  government  that 
this  country  was  divided  into  two  belligerent  parties,  of  which 
the  government  represented  one ;  and  that  the  government  of 
Great  Britain  proposed  to  assume  the  attitude  of  a  neutral 
between  them.  ' 


326  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN, 

Touching  this  decision,  Mr.  Seward  said  that  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  could  not  debate  it  with  the  gov 
ernment  of  Her  Majesty — much  less  consent  to  receive  the 
announcement  of  a  decision  thus  derogating  from  the  sover 
eignty  of  the  United  States — a  decision  at  which  it  had 
arrived  without  conferring  with  us  upon  the  question.  "  The 
United  States"  said  Mr.  Seward,  "are  still  solely  and  exclu 
sively  sovereign,  within  the  territories  they  have  lawfully 
acquired  and  long  possessed,  as  they  have  always  been.  They 
are  living  under  the  obligations  of  the  law  of  nations  and  of 
treaties  with  Great  Britain,  just  the  same  now  as  heretofore ; 
they  are,  of  course,  the  friend  of  Great  Britain;  and  they 
insist  that  Great  Britain  shall  remain  their  friend  now,  just  as 
she  has  hitherto  been.  Great  Britain,  by  virtue  of  these  re 
lations,  is  a  stranger  to  parties  and  sections  in  this  country, 
whether  they  are  loyal  to  the  United  States  or  not;  and 
Great  Britain  can  neither  rightfully  qualify  the  sovereignty 
of  the  United  States,  nor  concede  nor  recognize  any  rights 
or  interests  or  power,  of  any  party,  state  or  section,  in  con 
travention  to  the  unbroken  sovereignty  of  the  federal  Union. 
What  is  now  seen  in  this  country  is  the  occurrence,  by  no 
means  peculiar,  but  frequent  in  all  countries,  more  frequent  in 
Great  Britain  than  here,  of  an  armed  insurrection,  engaged 
in  attempting  to  overthrow  the  regularly  constituted  and  es 
tablished  government.  But  these  incidents  by  no  means  con 
stitute  a  state  of  war,  impairing  the  sovereignty  of  the  gov 
ernment,  creating  belligerent  sections,  and  entitling  foreign 
states  to  intervene  or  to  act  as  neutrals  between  them,  or  in 
any  other  way  to  cast  off  their  lawful  obligations  to  the  nation 
thus,  for  the  moment,  disturbed.  Any  other  principle  than 
this  would  be  to  resolve  government  everywhere  into  a  thing 
of  accident  and  caprice,  and  ultimately  all  human  society  into 
a  state  of  perpetual  war." 

Instructions  corresponding  with  these  were  sent  to  our  rep 
resentatives  at  the  French  and  other  European  courts.  These 
governments  were  plainly  given  to  understand  that  our  gov 
ernment  considered  the-difficulty  with  the  slaveholding  states 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  327 

to  be  exclusively  its  own — that  it  was  purely  a  domestic  re 
bellion,  which  it  proposed  to  extinguish  by  its  own  power, 
and  one  in  which  foreign  governments  had  no  right  to  inter 
meddle.  Our  ministers  were  told  by  Mr.  Seward  that  they 
oould  not  be  too  decided  or  explicit  in  making  known  to  the 
governments  at  which  they  represented  us,  that  there  was  not 
then,  and  would  not  be,  any  idea  existing  in  the  government 
of  suffering  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  to  take  place,  in  any 
way  whatever. 

Throughout  all  the  war  that  followed,  England  and  France 
maintained  their  most  unjustifiable  and  cruel  recognition  of 
the  belligerent  rights  of  the  rebels — unjustifiable,  because  it 
was  an  unfriendly  act  toward  a  friendly  power,  on  behalf  of 
a  rebellion  whose  forces  were  still  unorganized,  and  whose 
suppression  the  government  had  hardly  entered  upon;  and 
cruel,  because  it  encouraged  the  rebels  to  persevere  in  a  war 
which  could  only  end  in  defeat  to  them,  and  which  was  so 
prolonged  that  it  made  a  desolation  of  their  whole  country. 
There  is  probably  nothing  more  morally  certain  than  that  the 
expectation  of  full  recognition  by  England  and  France,  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Davis  and  his  people,  helped  to  continue  the 
struggle  of  the  rebellion  with  the  government,  until  tens  of 
thousands  of  loyal  and  disloyal  lives  were  needlessly  sacrificed. 
The  act  vas  unfriendly  to  this  government;  it  was  a  cruelty 
to  the  hapless  insurgents  it  deceived,  for  the  promise  it  con 
tained  wj.s  never  redeemed,  and  would  have  accomplished 
nothing  if  it  had  been;  and  it  was  a  great  blunder,  from  which 
those  blundering  governments  have  retreated,  amid  the  jeers 
of  the  nations  of  the  world,  and  the  shuffling  apologies  of 
their  own  people.  This  sympathy  with  the  rebellion  on  the 
part  of  these  foreign  governments  is  something  not  to  be  for 
gotten,  because  we  are  to  measure  by  it  the  magnanimity  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  treatment  of  international  questions  arising 
afterwards.  This  sympathy  is  to-day  denied;  it  was  then 
blatant  and  bellicose.  An  American  could  not  pass  through 
England  without  insult ;  he  could  not  speak  for  the  national 
cause  in  England  without  a  mob.  England,  or  all  of  England 


328  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

that  had  a  voice,  rejoiced  in  rebel  successes  and  federal  defeats, 
and  garbled  and  qualified  all  the  news  which  favored  the 
prospects  of  national  success.  Whatever  may  be  the  profes 
sions  of  England  now,  no  true  American  can  forget  that  all 
the  influence  she  dared  to  give  in  favor  of  the  rebellion  was 
given,  beginning  promptly  at  the  start;  and  that  her  posi 
tion  rendered  the  task  of  subduing  the  rebellion  doubly  se 
vere.  Whatever  may  be  the  professions  of  her  people  now, 
no  true  American  will  forget  the  insults  that  were  heaped 
upon  his  countrymen  abroad  whenever  an  allusion  was  made 
to  the  national  difficulties,  and  heaped  upon  the  country  by 
the  issues  of  a  press  that  represented  the  British  people, 
and  persistently  misrepresented  our  own.  It  was  not,  of 
course,  to  be  expected  that  monarchies  would  be  friendly  to 
the  great  prosperity  of  democracies,  or  that  they  would  give 
them  their  open  sympathy  and  co-operation  in  difficulty;  but 
the  latter  should  be  spared  receiving  the  hypocrisies  of  the 
former  as  courtesies;  and,  after  having  been  compelled  to 
drink  of  gall  for  four  years,  should  be  permitted  to  remember 
that  it  was  gall,  and  to  make  the  best  of  it,  without  being  per 
sistently  assured  that  it  was  honey. 


The  opening  of  the  war  found  Colonel  John  C.  Fremont  in 
Europe;  and  he,  with  a  large  number  of  loyal  Americans, 
hastened  home  to  give  their  services  to  their  country.  Colonel 
Fremont,  defeated  as  the  republican  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency  four  years  before  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  had  had 
military  experience,  and  was  recognized  as  a  popular  man, 
who  would  rally  to  his  command,  at  the  West,  large  numbers 
of  soldiers,  especially  among  the  German  populatbn  of  the 
region.  He  received  the  appointment  of  Major- General,  and 
on  the  same*  day  (July  25th,)  that  General  McClelkn  arrived 
in  Washington  to  take  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  he  arrived  at  St.  Louis,  and  entered  upon  the  command 
of  the  Department  of  the  West,  to  which  he  had  been  assigned. 

Before  General  Fremont  arrived  at  St.  Louis,  a  battb  was 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  329 

fought  on  Wilson's  Creek  by  General  Lyon  and  General 
Sigel,  with  a  large  force  under  the  command  of  Ben  McCul- 
loch.  It  was  the  second  considerable  battle  of  the  war,  and 
resulted  in  the  death  of  General  Lyon  himself,  and  the  final 
orderly  retreat  of  the  federal  forces  under  Sigel.  General 
Lyon  had  inflicted,  with  his  little  force  of  six  thousand  men, 
such  injury  upon  McCulloch's  twenty-two  thousand,  that  the 
latter  could  not  pursue;  and,  on  the  whole,  there  w*as  no 
special  discouragement  as  the  result  of  the  defeat. 

General  Fremont's  name  had  a  great  charm  for  the  western 
masses,  and  especially  for  the  Germans ;  and  volunteers  in 
large  numbers  sought  service  under  him.  His  campaign, 
upon  the  organization  of  which  he  entered  with  great  energy, 
contemplated  not  only  the  restoration  of  order  in  Missouri, 
but  the  reclaiming  the  control  of  the  Mississippi  River.  For 
this  latter  object,  he  organized  a  gun-boat  service,  which  was 
destined  to  play  a  very  important  part  in  the  operations  asso 
ciated  with  the  western  inland  waters. 

Missouri  was  in  a  condition  of  most  unhappy  disorder.  It 
was  a  border  slave  state,  containing  many  disunionists  of  its 
own,  and  abounding  with  secession  emissaries  from  other 
states,  determined  to  carry  it  over  to  the  confederacy.  Brother 
was  arrayed  against  brother.  Neighborhoods  were  distressed 
with  deadly  feuds.  Murders  were  of  every-day  occurrence 
on  every  hand,  and  outrages  of  fcvery  kind  were  rife.  The 
civil  administration  of  the  state  was  altogether  unreliable ; 
and  on  the  thirty-first  of  August,  General  Fremont  issued 
a  proclamation  declaring  martial  law,  defining  the  lines  of 
the  army  of  occupation,  and  threatening  with  death  by  the 
bullet  all  who  should  be  found  within  those  lines  with  arms 
in  their  hands.  Furthermore,  the  real  and  personal  prop 
erty  of  all  persons  in.  the  state  who  should  take  up  arms 
against  the  United  States  was  declared  confiscated  to  the 
public  use,  and  their  slaves,  if  they  had  any,  were  declared 
free  men. 

This  proclamation  produced  a  strong  effect  upon  the  public 
mind.  The  proclaiming  of  freedom  to  the  slaves  of  rebels 


330  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

struck  the  popular  chord,  particularly  among  thoroughly  loyal 
men  in  the  free  states.  Of  course,  it  maddened  all  the  sym 
pathizers  with  the  rebellion,  infuriated  the  rebels  themselves, 
and  perplexed  those  loyal  men  who  had  upon  their  hands  the 
task  of  so  conducting  affairs  as  to  hold  to  their  allegiance  the 
border  slave  states  which  had  not  seceded. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  approve  some  features  of  General  Fre 
mont's  proclamation.  As  soon  as  he  read  it,  he  wrote,  under 
date  of  September  second,  to  the  General,  that  there  were  two 
points  in  it  which  gave  him  anxiety.  The  first  was,  that,  if 
he  should  shoot  a  man  according  to  his  proclamation,  "the 
confederates  would  certainly  shoot  our  best  men  in  their  hands 
in  retaliation,  and  so,  man  for  man,  indefinitely."  He  therefore 
ordered  him  to  allow  no  man  to  be  shot  under  the  proclama 
tion  without  first  having  his  (the  President's)  approbation  or 
consent.  The  second  cause  of  anxiety  was  that  the  para 
graph  relating  to  the  confiscation  of  property  and  the  libera 
tion  of  slaves  of  traitorous  owners  would  alarm  Unionists  at 
the  South,  and  perhaps  ruin  the  fair  prospect  of  saving  Ken 
tucky  to  the  Union.  He,  therefore,  wished  General  Fremont, 
as  pf  his  own  motion,  so  to  modify  his  proclamation  as  to 
make  it  conformable  to  the  confiscation  act  just  passed  by  the 
extra  session  of  Congress,  which  only  freed  such  slaves  as 
were  engaged  in  the  rebel  service.  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  wish 
to  interfere  with  General  Fremont,  or  unreasonably  to  curtail 
his  authority,  although  he  had  assumed  an  unwarrantable  re 
sponsibility  in  taking  so  important  a  step  without  consultation 
or  notice.  Congress  had  had  that  very  matter  in  hand,  and 
had  embodied  its  opinion  in  an  act.  To  this  act  he  wished  to 
have  the  General  conform  his  proclamation,  and  that  was  all 
he  desired.  The  wisdom  of  his  criticism  of  the  first  point 
was  proved  by  a  document  issued  by  the  rebel  Jeff  Thomp 
son  on  the  same  day  he  wrote  it.  "Jeff  Thompson,  Briga 
dier  General  of  the  first  military  district  of  Missouri,"  acting 
under  the  state  government,  did  "most  solemnly  promise" 
that  for  every  soldier  of  the  state  guard,  "  or  soldier  of  our 
allies,  the  armies  of  the  confederate  States,"  who  should  be 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  331 


put  to  death  under  the  proclamation,  he  would  "liang, 
and  quarter  a  minion  of  Abraham  Lincoln." 

General  Fremont  received  the  President's  letter  respectfully, 
and  replied  to  it  September  eighth,  stating  the  difficulties  un 
der  which  he  labored,  with  communication  with  the  govern 
ment  so  difficult,  and  the  development  of  perplexing^  events 
so  rapid  in  the  department  under  his  command.  As  to  the 
part  of  his  proclamation  concerning  the  slaves,  he  wished  the 
President  openly  to  order  the  change  desired,  as,  if  he  should 
do  it  of  his  own  motion,  it  would  imply  that  he  thought  him 
self  wrono-,  and  that  he  had  acted  without  the  reflection  which 

O7  I 

the  gravity  of  the  point  demanded.  This  the  President  did, 
in  a  dispatch  under  daie  of  September  eleventh,  in  the  words: 
"It  is  therefore  ordered  that  the  said  clause  of  said  proclama 
tion  be  so  modified,  held,  and  construed,  as  to  conform  to,  and 
not  to  transcend,  the  provisions  on  the  same  subject  contained 
in  the  act  of  Congress  entitled,  '  An  act  to  confiscate  property 
used  for  insurrectionary  purposes,'  approved  August  6,  1861  ; 
and  that  such  act  be  published  at  length  with  this  order." 
Before  this  order  had  been  received,  or  on  the  day  following 
its  date,  General  Fremont,  though  acquainted  with  the  Pres 
ident's  wishes,  manumitted  two  slaves  of  Thomas  L.  Snead 
of  St.  Louis,  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  his  proclama 
tion. 

Although  Mr.  Lincoln  desired  General  Fremont  so  to  mod 
ify  his  proclamation  as  to  make  it  accordant  with  the  act  of 
Congress  approved  August  sixth,  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed 
that  he  did  it  solely  out  of  respect  to  that  act.  Congressional 
acts  that  were  passed  under  certain  circumstances,  could  not 
be  regarded  as  binding  the  hands  of  the  executive  under  all 
circumstances;  and  when,  in  a  state  of  war,  circumstances 
were  widely  changing  with  the  passage  of  every  day,  they 
would  be  a  poor  rule  of  military  action.  If  he  had  believed 
that  the  time  had  come  for  the  measure  of  liberating  the  slaves 
of  rebels  by  proclamation,  the  act  of  Congress  would  not 
have  stood  in  his  way.  This  act  was  an  embodiment  of  his 
policy  at  that  time,  and  he  used  it  for  his  immediate  purpose. 


332  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  day  after  he  gave  his  modifying  order,  he  received  a 
letter  from  Hon.  Joseph  Holt  of  Kentucky,  in  which  that 
gentleman  spoke  of  the  alarm  and  condemnation  with  which 
the  Union-loving  citizens  of  that  state  had  read  the  proclama 
tion,  and  begged  him  to  modify  it  by  an  order  such  as  he  had 
already  issued.  Judge  Holt  concluded  his  letter  by  say 
ing:  "The  magnitude  of  the  interest  at  stake,  and  my  ex 
treme  desire  that  by  no  misapprehension  of  your  sentiments  or 
purposes  shall  the  power  and  fervor  of  the  loyalty  of  Ken 
tucky  be  at  this  moment  abated  or  chilled,  must  be  my  apology 
for  the  frankness  with  which  I  have  addressed  you." 

Complications  in  the  personal  relations  of  General  Fremont 
and  Colonel  F.  P.  Blair,  under  whose  personal  and  family  in 
fluence  General  Fremont  had  received  his  position,  occurred 
at  an  early  day.  Colonel  Blair  doubtless  thought  that  he 
had  not  sufficient  weight  in  the  General's  counsels,  and  the 
General,  doubtless,  exercised  his  right,  in  choosing  his  own 
counselors.  Whether  he  followed  the  advice  of  others,  or 
was  guided  by  his  own  judgment  and  impulses,  he  conducted 
himself  quite  as  much  after  the  manner  of  an  eastern  satrap 
as  a  republican  commander.  The  public  found  it  difficult  to 
get  at  him,  he  kept  around  him  a  large  retinue,  and  dispensed 
patronage  and  contracts  with  a  right  royal  hand.  The  most 
there  is  to  be  'said  of  the  matter,  is,  that  it  was  his  way.  Pow 
er  was  in  his  hands,  a  great  work  was  before  him,  great  per 
sonal  popularity  attended  him,  and  the  sudden  elevation  was 
not  without  its  effect  upon  him.  Colonel  Blair,  who  was  the 
gallant  commander  of  the  First  Missouri  Volunteers,  stood  in 
a  peculiar  relation  to  him,  and  was  not,  by  virtue  of  that  re 
lation,  and  by  reason  of  a  high  and  worthily  won  political  and 
social  position,  to  be  lightly  put  aside.  He  came  down  upon 
his  superior  with  a  series  of  charges  which  covered  a  long 
catalogue  of  sins : — neglect  of  duty,  unofficerlike  conduct,  diso 
bedience  of  orders,  conduct  unbecoming  a  gentleman,  extrava 
gance  and  the  waste  of  the  public  moneys,  and  despotic  and 
tyrannical  conduct.  Among  the  specifications  were  Fremont's 
alleged  failure  to  repair  at  once  to  St.  Louis  to  enter  upon  his 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLN.  333 

duties;  his  neglecting  to  reinforce  Lyon  and  Mulligan;  his 
suffering  Brigadier-General  liurlburt,  "  a  common  drunkard," 
to  continue  in  command ;  his  refusal  to  see  people  who  sought 
his  presence  on  matters  of  urgent  business ;  his  violation  of 
the  presidential  order  in  the  matter  of  his  proclamation  and 
the  manumissions  under  it ;  his  persistency  in  keeping  disrepu 
table  persons  in  his  employ ;  and  his  unjust  suppression  of  the 
St.  Louis  Evening  News,  General  Fremont  had  no  better 
opinion  of  Colonel  Blair  than  Blair  had  of  him,  and  placed 
him  under  arrest  for  alluding  disrespectfully  to  superior  officers. 

It  was  a  very  unhappy  quarrel,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that 
there  was  blame  upon  both  sides,  though  it  occurred  between 
men  equally  devoted  to  the  sacred  cause  of  saving  the  country 
to  freedom  and  justice.  It  is  not  necessary  to  believe,  with 
the  enemies  of  General  Fremont,  that  he  found  the  country 
going  to  pieces^  and  intended  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of 
a  huge  north-western  fraction ;  nor,,  with  the  enemies  of  Colo 
nel  Blair,  that  he  was  offended  with  his  General  because  he 
could  not  have  as  good  a  chance  at  stealing  from  the  govern 
ment  as  was  believed  to  be  accorded  to  some  of  the  General's 
California,  friends.  Both  were  loyal  men,  both  were  anti- 
slavery  men — Colonel  Blair  being  quite  the  equal  of  General 
Fremont  in  this  respect — and  both  wished  to  serve  their  coun 
try.  Mr.  Lincoln  always  gave  to  each  the  credit  due  to  his 
motives,  and  so>  far  refused  to  mingle  in  the  general  quarrel 
that  grew  out  of  the  difficulty,  that  he  kept  the  good-will  of 
both  sides,  and  compelled  them  to  settle  their  own  differences. 

On  the  sixth  of  September,  General  Grant,  under  General 
Fremont's  command,  occupied  Paducah,  Kentucky,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tennessee  River.  Price  and  Jackson  were 
raising  a  formidable  army  for  service  in  Missouri,  and,  on  the 
twelfth  of  September,  compelled  the  surrender  of  Colonel 
Mulligan  and  his  forces  at  Lexington.  General  Fremont  at 
length  took  the  field  in  person.  On  the  eighth  of  October 
he  left  Jefferson  City  for  Sedalia.  As  he  advanced  with  his 
forces,  *Price  retreated,  until  it  was  widely  reported  that  he 
would  give  battle  to  the  national  forces  at  Springfield.  Just 


334  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

as  Fremont  was  making  ready  to  engage  the  enemy,  he  was 
overtaken  by  an  order  relieving  him  of  his  command.  He  was 
succeeded  by  General  Hunter;  but  Hunter's  command  was 
brief,  and  was  transferred  at  an  early  day  to  General  Halleck. 

General  Fremont  was  relieved  of  his  command  by  the  Pres 
ident  not  because  of  his  proclamation,  not  because  he  hated 
slavery,  and  not  because  he  believed  him  corrupt  or  vindictive 
or  disloyal.  He  relieved  him  simply  because  he  believed 
that  the  interests  of  the  country,  all  things  considered,  would 
be  subserved  by  relieving  him  and  putting  another  man  in 
his  place.  The  matter  was  the  cause  of  great  excitement  in 
Missouri,  and  of  much  complaint  among  the  radical  anti- 
slavery  men  of  the  country :  but  the  imputations  sought  to  be 
cast  upon  the  President  were  not  fastened  to  him ;  and  did  not, 
four  years  later,  when  Fremont  himself  became  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency,  prevent  the  warmest  anti-slavery  men  from 
giving  Mr.  Lincoln  their  support. 

The  federal  army  under  General  Hunter  retreated  without 
a  battle ;  and  thus  the  campaign,  inaugurated  with  great  show 
and  immense  expense,  was  a  flat  failure. 

In  the  meantime,  General  Rosecrans  finished  up  the  work 
in  "Western  Virginia  that  General  McClellan  had  prematurely 
declared,  accomplished,  and  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  un 
der  the  latter  General,  was  swelling  in  numbers,  and  active  in 
organization  and  discipline.  General  McClellan's  popularity 
with  the  army  was  very  great.  They  felt  his  organizing  hand, 
and  regarded  him  with  the  proudest  confidence.  The  coun 
try,  however,  was  becoming  impatient  with  him.  He  would 
spare  no  men  for  any  outside  enterprises,  and  still  rolled  up 
the  numbers  of  his  cumbersome  forces,  though  good  roads  lay 
in  front,  and  pleasant  weather  invited  to  action.  Oai  the  twen 
ty-ninth  of  August,  General  Butler,  acting  with  a  naval  force 
under  Commodore  Stringham,  took  possession  of  the  Hatteras 
forts,  with  a  force  which  he  had  raised  independently  for  the 
expedition.  This  gave  great  satisfaction  to  the  country,  and 
helped  to  keep  up  the  popular  courage  under  the  depressing 
influence  of  delay  on  the  part  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  335 

I 

In  the  month  of  August,  Munson's  Hill,  within  view  of 
the  capitol,  was  occupied  by  the  rebel  forces ;  and,  though  they 
were  not  strong  in  numbers,  and  took  but  limited  pains  to  in 
trench  themselves,  they  remained  there  undisturbed  unti-1 
nearly  the  last  of  September,  when  they  left  of  their  own  ac 
cord.  On  the  twenty-first  of  October,  there  occurred  a  disas 
trous  battle  and  blunder  at  Ball's  Bluff.  It  was  a  sad  failure 
to  fulfill  the  promise  of  a  magnificent  preparation  for  action. 
The  country  was  disappointed  and  indignant.  The  number 
killed,  drowned,  wounded  and  captured  was  eleven  hundred — 
full  half  that  went  into  the  action.  Here  Colonel  Baker,  the 
President's  friend,  fell;  and,  although  General  McClellan,  in 
his  report  of  the  affair,  said  that,  "situated  as  their  troops 
were — cut  off  alike  from  retreat  or  reinforcements — five  thou 
sand  against  one  thousand  seven  hundred — it  was  not  possible 
that  the  issue  could  have  been  successful,"  the  unmilitary  mind 
will  still  inquire  why,  with  an  immense  army  but  a  few  miles 
away,  they  were  left  or  placed  where  reinforcement  and  re 
treat  were  alike  impossible  ? 

General  Scott  did  not  like  the  looks  or  management  of 
military  affairs,  and  felt  that  his  place  was  becoming  unpleas 
ant.  Only  a  few  days  after  the  affair  at  Ball's  Bluff,  he  made 
known  to  Mr.  Lincoln  his  desire  to  be  released  from  all  active 
duties,  in  consequence  of  his  increasing  physical  infirmity.  In 
a  letter  dated  November  first,  the  President  acceded  to  his 
request,  and  added:  "The  American  people  will  hear  with 
sadness  and  deep  emotion  that  General  Scott  has  withdrawn 
from  the  active  control  of  the  army,  while  the  President  and 
the  unanimous  Cabinet  express  their  own  and  the  nation's  sym 
pathy  in  his  personal  affliction,  and  their  profound  sense  of  the 
important  public  services  rendered  by  him  to  his  country,  dur 
ing  his  long  and  brilliant  public  career,  among  which  will  ever 
be  gratefully  distinguished  his  faithful  devotion  to  the  Consti 
tution,  the  Union  and  the  flag,  when  assailed  by  parricidal  re 
bellion."  To  do  all  possible  honor  to  the  noble  veteran  who 
had  stood  by  the  country  when  so  many  army  officers  had 
gone  over  to  the  rebellion  under  the  appeal  of  sectional  friend- 


336  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ship — an  appeal  made  to  him  with  all  the  persuasions  that  in- 
genuky  could  devise — the  President  and  his  entire  Cabinet 
waited  upon  him  at  his  residence ;  and  there,  with  his  Secreta 
ries  around  him,  Mr.  Lincoln  read  to  him  his  letter.  It  was  a 
grand  moment  in  the  old  man's  life.  "  This  honor  overwhelms 
me,"  he  responded.  "It  overpays  all  services  I  have  attempted 
to  render  to  my  country.  If  I  had  any  claims  before,  they  are 
all  obliterated  by  this  expression  of  approval  by  the  President, 
with  the  unaniinous  support  of  the  Cabinet.  I  know  the 
President  and  this  Cabinet  well — I  know  that  the  country  has 
placed  its  interests  in  this  trying  crisis  in  safe  keeping.  Their 
councils  are  wise;  their  labors  are  untiring  as  they  are  loyal, 
and  their  course  is  the  right  one." 

Thus,  after  fifty-three  years  of  service  in  the  armies  of  his 
country,  General  Scott  went  into  his  nobly  earned  retirement, 
with  the  blessing  of  his  government  and  the  blessing  of  his 
country  upon  his  venerable  head ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  sweetest 
satisfactions  of  both  to  remember  that  he  lived  to  see  his 
country's  enemies  vanquished,  and  to  hear  of  those  who 
taunted  him  with  faithlessness  to  his  sectional  friends,  humbly 
seeking  pardon  of  the  government  which  they  had  outraged, 
and  which  he  had  so  loyally  supported. 

On  General  Scott's  retirement,  General  McClellan  held  the 
highest  rank  in  the  army,  and  was  intrusted  with  the  chief 
command. 

During  the  month  of  November,  the  Union  forces  achieved 
several  important  and  encouraging  successes.  South  Carolina 
was  invaded  by  an  expedition  under  the  joint  command  of 
General  T.  TV.  Sherman  and  Commodore  Dupont,  the  latter 
of  whom  achieved  a  brilliant  naval  victory  in  Port  Royal 
Harbor.  Genera-Is  Grant  and  McClernand,  with  a  force  of 
three  thousand  five  hundred  men,  attacked  a  rebel  camp  in 
Missouri  under  General  Polk,  captured  twelve  guns,  burned 
their  camp,  and  took  baggage,  horses  and  many  prisoners. 
The  rebels  were  afterwards  reinforced,  and  compelled  the 
Union  forces  to  return  to  their  transports.  Notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  rebels  claimed  a  victory,  the  results  were 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  337 

substantially  with,  their  assailants.  General  Buclmer,  with 
whom  McClellan  was  alleged  to  have  made  his  treaty  of 
neutrality,  had  thrown  off  his  neutral  mask,  and  was  gath 
ering  an  army  of  rebels  in  Kentucky,  co-operating  with  Gen 
eral  Bragg  who  was  invading  the  state  with  the  determination 
to  force  it  into  secession.  To  meet  and  repel  this  invasion, 
General  W.  T.  Sherman  advanced  with  a  large  force  to 
Bowling  Green,  while  General  Nelson,  on  his  left,  gained  a 
decisive  victory  over  the  rebels  under  Colonel  Williams.  The 
various  operations  of  the  Union  forces  broke  up  the  rebel 
project  of  subjugation,  and  re-invigorated  the  efforts  of  the 
Union  men  to  hold  the  state  to  its  loyalty.  General  Halleck 
was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  army  of  the  West,  and 
General  Buell  took  General  W.  T.  Sherman's  command  in 
Kentucky. 

The  question  of  slavery  was  an  ever-present  one  during  all 
the  operations  of  the  year.  The  instructions  given  by  the 
War  Department  to  General  Butler  on  the  eighth  of  August, 
were  based  upon  "  the  desire  of  the  President  that  all  existing 
rights  in  all  the  states  should  be  respected  and  maintained ; " 
yet  it  was  declared  that  "  the  rights  dependent  on  the  laws 
of  the  states  within  which  military  operations  are  conducted 
must  necessarily  be  subordinate  to  the  military  exigencies  cre 
ated  by  the  insurrection,  if  not  wholly  forfeited  by  the  treas 
onable  conduct  of  the  parties  claiming  them."  The  difficulty 
of  settling  the  claims  of  loyal  masters  was  such  that  it  was 
recommended  to  receive  all  fugitives,  keep  a  record  of  them, 
and  set  them  to  work.  Congress,  the  Secretary  of  War  be 
lieved,  would  provide  for  the  repayment  of  loyal  masters. 
On  the  departure  of  General  T.  W.  Sherman  on  his  expedi 
tion  to  Port  Royal,  Mr.  Cameron  referred  him  to  the  letter 
to  General  Butler  on  this  subject.  He  was  directed  to  receive 
the  services  of  any  persons,  whether  fugitives  from  labor  or 
not,  who  should  offer  them  to  the  national  government.  These 
fugitives  might  be  organized  into  "  squads,  companies,  or  oth 
erwise,"  though  that  liberty  was  not  intended  to  mean  a  gen 
eral  arming  of  them  for  military  service.  Loyal  masters  were 
22 


338  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

to  be  assured,  meantime,  that  Congress  would  provide  for  them 
a  just  compensation  for  services  thus  lost  to  them.  The  time 
for  emancipation  had  not  come,  in  the  opinion  of  the  gov 
ernment.  That  Mr.  Lincoln  desired  it,  none  can  doubt ;  but 
he  had  undertaken  to  save  the  Union  under  the  Constitution — 
to  save  the  Union  while  preserving  inviolate  all  the  rights  of 
all  the  states.  He  so  understood  the  oath  by  which  he  was 
invested  with  power.  Whatever  might  be  his  hatred  of  slav 
ery — and  it  was  the  intensest  passion  of  his  life — he  could  only 
interfere  with  it  as  a  military  necessity — an  essential  means  of 
saving  the  Union. 


CHAPTEE   XXI. 

EARLY  in  November,  an  event  occurred  which  gave  to  our 
relations  with  England  a  very  threatening  aspect — an  event 
which  aroused  the  ire  of  the  British  people  to  a  feverish  pitch, 
encouraged  the  rebels,  and  filled  with  uneasiness  the  friends 
of  the  government.  Although  the  blockade,  under  the  ener 
getic  measures  of  the  government,  had  become  something 
very  different  from  a  blockade  on  paper,  there  were  still  many 
ports  in  the  southern  states  which  carried  on  a  large  contra 
band  commerce,  through  the  agency  of  blockade-runners,  the 
majority  of  which  were  owned  in  England,  and  navigated  by 
British  seamen.  The  capture  of  the  Hatteras  forts  and  of  the 
defenses  of  Port  Royal  Harbor  had  shut  two  of  these  ports; 
but  Charleston,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  block 
ading  fleet,  continued  to  receive  numbers  of  foreign  vessels, 
and  to  dispatch  them  in  safety.  On  the  twelfth  of  October, 
the  steamship  Theodora  shot  out  of  that  harbor,  with  two 
notorious  rebels  on  board,  James  M.  Mason  and  John  Slidell, 
both  perjured  senators  of  the  United  States,  and  accredited 
by  the  Davis  government  respectively  to  the  governments  of 
England  and  France.  -  They  went  to  get  recognition  for  their 
government.  They  went  as  enemies  of  the  United  States. 

Proceeding  to  Cuba,  these  emissaries  took  passage  from 
Havana  on  the  seventh  of  November,  on  the  British  mail 
steamer  Trent,  bound  immediately  for  St.  Thomas.  On  the 
following  day,  the  Trent  was  hailed  by  the  United  States 
frigate  San  Jacinto,  Captain  Wilkes,  who  directed  a  shot 


340  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

across  her  bows  to  bring  her  to.  Then  two  officers  and 
twenty  men,  more  or  less,  put  off  from  the  San  Jacinto, 
boarded  the  Trent,  and,  after  a  search,  took  out  AI>.  Mason 
and  Mr.  Slidell  and  their  two  secretaries,  and,  by  force,  against 
the  protest  of  the  Trent's  officers,  bore  them  to  their  vessel. 
These  rebel  emissaries  Captain  Wilkes  brought  to  the  United 
States,  and  they  were  lodged  in  Fort  Warren. 

The  excitement  which  this  affair  produced  in  both  countries 
was  intense,  and  but  little  favorable  to  its  calm  consideration. 
It  was  unquestionably  a  doubtful  proceeding,  and  cool  British 
blood  came  up  to  a  boiling  heat  wherever  in  England  or  her 
provinces  the  intelligence  of  the  affair  was  published.  The 
news  found  the  loyal  people  of  America  smarting  under  a 
sense  of  the  injustice  of  the  relation  which  England  had  as 
sumed  toward  their  struggle,  and  sensitive  to  the  insults  which 
their  people  had  received  from  the  British  press  and  public. 
America  came  to  care  less  for  England  afterward ;  but  then 
she  was  sensitive  in  every  fiber  tq  her  opinion,  her  lack  of 
sympathy,  and  her  covert  aid  to  the  rebellion.  To  the  Amer 
ican  public  the  news  of  this  capture  was  most  grateful.  They 
felt  that  whatever  the  laws  of  nations  might  be — and  in  these 
they  were  but  little  versed — it  was  morally  right  that  these 
men  should  be  in  their  power,  and  that  it  was  morally  wrong 
that  any  other  power  should  have  our  traitors  under  its  pro 
tection.  So  they  greeted  the  event  with  huzzas,  and  made 
a  hero  of  the  impulsive  Captain  Wilkes,  who,  though  a  most 
loyal  and  excellent*  person,  was  possessed  by  a  zeal  that  some 
times  surpassed  his  discretion. 

The  effect  of  this  capture  was,  of  course,  foreseen  by  the 
government;  and  on  the  thirtieth  of  November  Mr.  Seward 
communicated  to  Mr.  Adams,  our  minister  in  England,  a 
statement  of  the  facts,  with  the  assurance  that  Captain  Wilkes 
had  acted  without  any  instructions  from  the  government,  and 
that  our  government  was  prepared  to  discuss  the  mutter  in  a 
friendly  spirit,  so  soon  as  the  position  of  the  British  govern 
ment  should  be  made  known.  Earl  Russell  wrote  under  the 
same  date  to  Lord  Lyons,  rehearsing  his  understanding  of  the 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LIXCOLX.  341 

facts  of  the  case,  and  saying  that  his  government  was  "  willing 
to  believe  that  the  naval  officer  who  committed  the  aggression 
was  not  acting  in  compliance  with  any  authority  from  his 
government,"  because  the  government  of  the  United  States 
"must  be  fully  aware  that  the  British  government  could  not 
allow  such  an  affront  to  the  national  honor  to  pass  without 
full  reparation."  The  minister  expressed  the  hope  that  the 
United  States  would,  of  its  own  motion,  release  the  commis 
sioners,  and  make  an  apology. 

This  was  a  very  sensible  and  neighborly  dispatch,  but  Earl 
Eussell  seems  to  have  been  subjected  afterward  to  a  pressure 
that  changed  his  feelings  and  sharpened  his  policy,  for,  in  a 
subsequent  note,  he  transformed  his  polite  dispatch  into  an 
insulting  ultimatum.  Lord  Lyons  was  directed  to  wait  seven 
days  after  having  made  his  demand  for  reparation ;  and  then, 
in  case  no  answer  should  be  given,  or  any  other  answer  should 
be  given  than  a  full  compliance  with  the  terms  of  the  demand, 
he  should  pack  up  the  archives  of  the  legation,  and  return  to 
London,  bringing  his  archives  with  him.  Usually  an  ulti 
matum  comes  at  the  end  of  a  long  series  of  negotiations — after 
all  the  resources  of  diplomacy  are  exhausted — after  there  is 
plainly  seen  to  be  a  warlike,  or  unreasonable,  or  contumacious 
spirit  on  the  part  of  the  pOAver  from  which  redress  is  sought. 
Earl  Russell  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  his  ultimatum  at  the  start.  It 
was  an  insult — a  threat.  It  was  uttered  to  gratify  the  war 
like  feeling  of  the  British  people.  There  is  no  question  that 
they  desired  war ;  and  when  the  British  people  are  mentioned 
in  this  connection,  those  are  meant  who,  in  print  and  speech, 
represent  them  and  assume  to  speak  for  them.  War  with 
America  was  looked  upon  in  England  as  probable.  Measures 
were  taken  to  prepare  for  it.  Indeed,  many  of  the  London 
journals  regarded  Avar  as  inevitable ;  and  when  the  peaceful 
nature  of  Mr.  Seward's  first  dispatches  were  known,  the 
Morning  Post  hastened  to  publish  in  large  type  an  official 
contradiction  of  the  news.  "The  war  will  be  terrible,"  said 
the  London  journals.  ult  will  begin  by  a  recognition  of  the 
South,  by  the  alliance  of  the  South,  by  the  assured  triumph 


342  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

of  the  South."  That  was  the  precise  point.  War  was  wanted 
by  the  people,  that  their  cherished  desire  for  the  disruption  of 
the  Kepublic  might  be  fulfilled ;  and  they  were  disappointed 
when  they  found  that  even  an  impertinent  ultimatum  could 
not  bring  it. 

If  British  statesmen  sympathized  with  these  views  and  feel 
ings, — and  some  of  them  did, — it  showed  how  poorly  informed 
they  were;  for  there  was  never  anything  in  the  difficulty, 
from  the  first,  to  give  either  government  alarm.  The  British 
people  found  that  there  was  a  government  at  Washington, — 
calm,  dignified  and  intelligent,  not  under  the  control  of  the 
mob  at  all,  and  showing,  in  the  cool  independence  of  its  action, 
its  entire  freedom  from  the  misdirected  passions  of  the  people. 
Only  in  the  early  approval  of  the  Secretary  of  |he  Navy  and 
of  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  awarded  to  Captain  Wilkes, 
was  there  anything  to  give  the  British  government  cause  of 
alarm,  or  ground  of  serious  complaint ;  and  the  news  of  these 
ill-advised  indorsements  reached  England  after  the  tempest 
of  passion  had  been  spent. 

On  the  twenty-sixth  of  December  Mr.  Seward  addressed  a 
note  to  Lord  Lyons,  in  which  he  elaborately  discussed  all  the 
questions  growing  out  of  the  case.  The  paper  was  one  of 
great  moderation,  and  consummate  ability — indeed,  one  of 
the  finest  to  which  he  ever  gave  utterance.  It  was  a  profound 
lesson  in  the  law  of  nations,  which  could  not  be  read  without 
benefit  by  statesmen  everywhere.  By  it  the  British  govern 
ment  learned  that  there  were  two  sides  to  the  case,  and  that 
there  was  something  to  be  said  upon  the  side  of  Captain  Wilkes ; 
for  in  it  he  argued  most  ingeniously,  if  not  in  all  instances  de 
cisively,  that  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell  and  their  dispatches 
were  contraband  of  war,  that  Captain  Wilkes  might  lawfully 
stop  and  search  the  Trent  for  contraband  persons  and  dis 
patches,  and  that  he  had  the  right  to  capture  the  persons  pre 
sumed  to  have  contraband  dispatches.  He  did  not,  however, 
exercise  the  right  of  capture  in  the  manner  allowed  and  recog 
nized  by  the  laws  of  nations,  as  understood  and  practically 
entertained  by  the  American  government.  "If  I  decide  this 


LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  343 

case  in  favor  of  my  own  government,"  said  Mr.  Seward,  "I 
must  disavow  its  most  cherished  principles,  and  reverse  and 
forever  abandon  its  essential  policy.  If  I  maintain  those  prin 
ciples  and  adhere  to  that  policy,  I  must  surrender  the  case  it 
self."  He  therefore  declared  that  the  persons  held  in  military 
custody  in  Fort  Warren  would  be  "cheerfully  liberated." 
Mr.  Seward  could  not  forbear  to  say  that,  if  the  safety  of  the 
Union  required  their  detention,  they  would  have  been  detained; 
to  draw  a  contrast  between  the  action  of  our  government  and 
that  of  Great  Britain  under  similar  circumstances ;  and  to  in 
dulge  in  the  irony  that  "  the  claim  of  the  British  government 
is  not  made  in  a  discourteous  manner." 

Earl  Russell  was  satisfied  with  the  "reparation."  The  pris 
oners  were  released,  peace  between  the  two  nations  was  kept, 
the  war  feeling  subsided,  disunion  sympathizers  all  over  Europe 
were  disgusted  with  Mr.  Seward's  pusillanimity,  and  at  the 
South  there  was  no  attempt  to  disguise  the  disappointment 
felt  at  the  result.  The  hopes  excited  in  the  South  by  the  dif 
ficulty  are  well  expressed  in  the  language  of  Pollard's  "  His 
tory  of  the  First  Year  of  the  War,"  which  says :  "  Providence 
was  declared  to  DC  in  our  favor;  the  incident  of  the  Trent 
was  looked  upon  almost  as  a  special  dispensation ;  and  it  was 
said  in  fond  imagination  that  on  its  deck  and  in  the  trough  of 
the  weltering  Atlantic  the  key  of  the  blockade  had  at  last 
been  lost."  The  same  author  continues:  "The  surrender 
was  an  exhibition  of  meanness  and  cowardice  unparalleled  in 
the  political  history  of  the  civilized  world."  Patriots  may 
well  be  content  with  a  decision  which  brought  grief  to  their 
enemies  everywhere,  and  raised  the  whole  nation  in  the  respect 
of  Christendom. 

On  the  second  day  of  December,  Congress  met  in  regular 
session,  and  on  the  following  day  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  in  his  an 
nual  message.  The  message  opened  with  an  allusion  to  the  at 
titude  of  foreign  governments,  and  a  statement  of  the  fact  that, 
should  those  governments  be  controlled  only  by  material  con 
siderations,  they  would  find  that  the  quickest  and  best  way 
out  of  the  embarrassments  of  commerce  consequent  upon  the 


344:  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN". 

American  difficulties,  would  be  rather  through  the  maintenance, 
than  the  destruction,  of  the  Union.  It  was  undoubtedly  with 
reference  to  the  excitement  then  existing  concerning  the  Trent 
affair  that  he  penned  the  sentence :  "  Since,  however,  it  is  ap 
parent  that  here,  as  in  every  other  state,  foreign  dangers  nec 
essarily  attend  domestic  difficulties,  I  recommend  that  adequate 
and  ample  measures  be  adopted  for  maintaining  the  public 
defenses  on  every  side." 

The  message  announced  the  financial  measures  of  the  ^ov- 
ernment  to  have  been  very  successful ;  recommended  a  re-or 
ganization  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  machinery  of  which  the 
country  had  outgrown;  suggested  a  codification  or  digest  of 
the  statutes  of  Congress,  so  as  to  reduce  the  six  thousand  pages 
upon  which  they  were  printed  to  the  measure  of  a  volume ;  in 
dicated  his  wish  that  the  Court  of  Claims  should  have  power 
to  make  its  decisions  final,  with  only  the  right  of  appeal  on 
questions  of  law  to  the  Supreme  Court ;  asked  for  increased 
attention  on  the  part  of  Congress  to  the  interests  of  agricul 
ture  ;  expressed  his  gratification  with  the  success  of  efforts  for 
the  suppression  of  the  African  slave  trade;  and  broached  a 
plan  for  colonizing  such  slaves  as  had  been  freed  by  the  oper 
ation  of  the  confiscation  act,  passed  on  the  previous  sixth  of 
August,  on  territory  to  be  acquired.  The  progress  made 
by  the  federal  armies,  and  by  his  own  careful  and  moderate 
management  of  affairs  in  the  border  states,  is  shown  in  the 
following  passage : 

"  The  last  ray  of  hope  for  preserving  the  Union  peaceably,  expired 
at  the  assault  upon  Fort  Sumter;  and  a  general  review  of  what  has  oc 
curred  since  may  not  be  unprofitable.  "What  was  painfully  uncertain 
then,  is  much  better  defined  and  more  distinct  now ;  and  the  progress 
of  events  is  plainly  in  the  right  direction.  The  insurgents  confidently 
claimed  a  strong  support  from  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line ;  and 
the  friends  of  the  Union  were  not  free  from  apprehension  on  the  point. 
This,  however,  was  soon  settled  .definitely,  and  on  the  right  side.  South 
of  the  line,  noble  little  Delaware  led  off  right  from  the  first.  Maryland 
was  made  to  seem  against  the  Union.  Our  soldiers  were  assaulted, 
bridges  were  burned,  and  railroads  torn  up  within  her  limits ;  and  we 
were  many  days,  at  one  time,  Avithout  the  ability  to  bring  a  single  regi- 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM  .LINCOLN.  345 

ment  over  her  soil  to  the  capital.  Now  her  bridges  and  railroads  are 
repaired  and  open  to  the  Government;  she  already  gives  seven  regi 
ments  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  and  none  to  the  enemy;  and  her 
people,  at  a  regular  election,  have  sustained  the  Union  by  a  larger  ma 
jority  and  a  larger  aggregate  vote  than  they  ever  before  gave  to  any 
candidate  or  any  question.  Kentucky,  too,  for  some  time  in  doubt,  is 
now  decidedly  and,  I  think,  unchangeably  ranged  on  the  side  of  the 
Union.  Missouri  is  comparatively  quiet,  and,  I  believe,  can  not  again 
be  overrun  by  the  insurrectionists.  These  three  states  of  Maryland, 
Kentucky  and  Missouri,  neither  of  which  would  promise  a  single  soldier 
at  first,  have  now  an  aggregate  of  not  less  than  forty  thousand  in  the 
field  for  the  Union;  while  of  their  citizens,  certainly  not  more  than  a 
third  of  that  number,  and  they  of  doubtful  whereabouts  and  doubtful 
existence,  are  in  arms  against  it.  After  a  somewhat  bloody  struggle 
of  months,  winter  closes  on  the  Union  people  of  Western  Virginia, 
leaving  them  masters  of  their  own  country. 

"  An  insurgent  force  of  about  fifteen  hundred,  for  months  dominating 
the  narrow  peninsular  region  constituting  the  counties  of  Accomac  and 
Northampton,  and  known  as  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Virginia,  together 
with  some  contiguous  parts  of  Maryland,  have  laid  down  their  arms; 
and  the  people  there  have  renewed  their  allegiance  to,  and  accepted  the 
protection  of  the  old  flag.  This  leaves  no  armed  insurrectionist  north 
of  the  Potomac,  or  east  of  the  Chesapeake. 

"  Also,  we  have  obtained  a  footing  at  each  of  the  isolated  points  on 
the  southern  coast,  of  Hatteras,  Port  Royal,  Tybee  Island  near  Savan 
nah,  and  Ship  Island;  and  we  likewise  have  some  general  accounts  of 
popular  movements  in  behalf  of  the  Union  in  North  Carolina  and  Ten 
nessee. 

"  These  things  demonstrate  that  the  cause  of  the  Union  is  advancing 
steadily  and  certainly  southward." 

In  the  development  of  the  insurrection,  Mr.  Lincoln  de 
tected  a  growing  enmity  to  the  first  principle  of  popular  gov 
ernment — the  rights  of  the  people.  In  the  grave  and  well 
considered  public  documents  of  the  rebels  he  found  labored 
arguments  to  prove  that  "large  control  of  the  people  in  gov 
ernment  is  the  source  of  all  political  evil.  Monarchy  itself," 
he  adds,  "  is  sometimes  hinted  at  as  a  possible  refuge  from  the 
power  of  the  people."  Proceeding  from  this,  Mr.  Lincoln  said : 

"  It  is  not  needed,  nor  fitting  here,  that  a  general  argument  should 
be  made  in  favor  of  popular  institutions;  but  there  is  one  point,  with  its 
connections,  not  so  hackneyed  as  most  others,  to  which  I  ask  a  brief 


346  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

attention.  It  is  the  effort  to  place  capital  on  an  equal  footing  with,  if 
not  above,  labor,  in  the  structure  of  the  government.  It  is  assumed  that 
labor  is  available  only  in  connection  with  capital ;  thai?  nobody  labors 
unless  somebody  else,  owning  capital,  somehow  by  the  use  of  it  induces 
him  to  labor.  This  assumed,  it  is  next  considered  whether  it  is  best 
that  capital  shall  hire  laborers,  and  thus  induce  them  to  work  by  their 
own  consent,  or  buy  them,  and  drive  them  to  it  without  their  consent. 
Having  proceeded  so  far,  it  is  naturally  concluded  that  all  laborers  are 
either  hired  laborers  or  what  we  call  slaves.  And  further,  it  is  assumed 
that  whoever  is  once  a  hired  laborer,  is  fixed  in  that  condition  for  life. 

"Now,  there  is  no  such  relation  between  capital  and  labor  as  assumed; 
nor  is  there  any  such  thing  as  a  free  man  being  fixed  for  life  in  the  con 
dition  of  a  hired  laborer.  Both  these  assumptions  are  false,  and  all  in 
ferences  from  them  are  groundless. 

"  Labor  is  prior  to  and  independent  of  capital.  Capital  is  only  the 
fruit  of  labor,  and  could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  ex 
isted.  Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital,  and  deserves  much  the  higher 
consideration.  Capital  has  its  rights,  which  are  as  worthy  of  protection 
as  any  other  rights.  Nor  is  it  denied  that  there  is,  and  probably  always 
will  be,  a  relation  between  labor  and  capital,  producing  mutual  benefits. 
The  error  is  in  assuming  that  the  whole  labor  of  the  conrHiunity  exists 
within  that  relation.  A  few  men  own  capital,  and  those  few  avoid  labor 
themselves,  and,  with  their  capital,  hire  or  buy  another  few  to  labor  for 
them.  A  large  majority  belong  to  neither  class — neither  work  for  oth 
ers,  nor  have  others  working  for  them.  In  most  of  the  southern  states, 
a  majority  of  the  whole  people  of  all  colors  are  neither  slaves  nor  mas 
ters  ;  while  in  the  northern,  a  large  majority  are  neither  hirers  nor 
hired.  Men,  with  their  families — wives,  sons,  and  daughters — work  for 
themselves,  on  their  farms,  in  their  houses,  and  in  their  shops,  taking 
the  whole  product  to  themselves,  and  asking  no  favors  of  capital  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  of  hired  laborers  or  slaves  on  the  other.  It  is  not 
forgotten  that  a  considerable  number  of  persons  mingle  their  own  labor 
with  capital — that  is,  they  labor  with  their  own  hands,  and  also  buy  or 
Lire  others  to  labor  for  them ;  but  this  is  only  a  mixed,  and  not  a  dis 
tinct  class.  No  principle  stated  is  disturbed  by  the  existence  of  this 
mixed  class. 

"Again:  as  has  already  been  said,  there  is  not  of  necessity  any  sucji 
thing  as  the  free  hired  laborer  being  fixed  to  that  condition  for  life. 
Many  independent  men  everywhere  in  these  states,  a  few  years  back  in 
their  lives,  were  hired  laborers.  The  prudent,  penniless  beginner  in 
the  world,  labors  for  wages  awhile,  saves  a  surplus  with  which  to  buy 
tools  or  land  for  himself,  then  labors  on  his  own  account  another  while, 
and  at  length  hires  another  new  beginner  to  help  him.  This  is  the  just 
and  generous  and  prosperous  system,  which  opens  the  way  to  all,  gives 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LIXCOLtf.  347 

hope  to  all,  and  consequent  energy  and  progress,  and  improvement  of 
condition  to  all.  No  men  living  are  more  worthy  to  be  trusted  than 
those  who  toil  up  from  poverty — none  less  inclined  to  take  or  touch 
aught  which  they  have  not  honestly  earned.  Let  them  beware  of  sur 
rendering  a  political  power  which  they  already  possess,  and  which,  if 
surrendered,  will  surely  be  used  to  close  the  door  of  advancement 
against  such  as  they,  and  to  fix  new  disabilities  and  burdens  upon  them, 
till  all  of  liberty  shall  be  lost." 

Aside  from  the  bills  passed  for  sustaining  the  war,  and  sus 
taining  the  President  in  his  mode  of  and  means  for  suppressing 
the  rebellion,  very  little  important  action  was  taken  by  this 
session  of  Congress,  that  did  not  relate  to  slavery.  The  ques 
tion  of  "  arbitrary  arrests,"  of  which  the  enemies  of  the  Pres 
ident  made  loud  complaint,  came  up,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
sustained  in  the  House  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  eight  to 
twenty-six.  A  provision  was  made  for  the  issue  of  legal- 
tender  notes,  for  increasing  the  internal  revenue,  and  estab 
lishing  a  basis  for  the  payment  of  interest  on  loans,  in  accord" 
ance  with  the  policy  of  Mr.  Chase,  the  distinguished  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury;  and  a  confiscation  act  was  passed,  more 
stringent  than  its  predecessor. 

We  now  enter  upon  a  review  of  that  series  of  measures  and 
movements  which  culminated  in  the  overthrow  of  slavery; 
and,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  assailed  on  one  side  for  being  too 
slow,  and  on  the  other  for  being  too  precipitate,  these  move 
ments  and  measures  deserve  careful  consideration. 

If  there  is  one  thing  that  stands  out  more  prominently  than 
any  other  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  history,  it  is  his  regard  for  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws.  Especially  was  this  the  case  in 
relation  to  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  protected 
slavery,  and  all  the  laws  by  which  the  relation  of  master  and 
slave  was  preserved.  This  was  not  attributable  to  his  love 
of  slavery,  for  he  hated  it;  but  it  was  because  that  on  this 
point  only  was  he  suspected,  and  on  this  point  only  was  there 
any  sensitiveness  in  the  nation.  He  voluntarily  and  frequently 
declared  that  he  considered  the  slaveholders  entitled  to  a  fugi 
tive  slave  law.  By  the  Constitution  he  was  determined  to 
stand ;  yet  there  is  evidence  that  from  the  first  he  considered 


348  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

emancipation  to  be  tho  logical  result  of  persistence  in  rebellion. 
As  the  rebellion  progressed,  and  the  rebels  themselves  had 
forfeited  all  right  to  constitutional  protection  for  their  peculiar 
institution,  he  felt  himself  still  withheld  from  meddling  with 
slavery  by  any  sweeping  measure,  for,  in  the  four  border 
states — Maryland,  Delaware,  Kentucky  and  Missouri — which 
had  not  seceded,  the  government  had  many  friends,  whose 
hands  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  strengthen  by  every  possible  means. 
He  saw  the  time  of  emancipation  coming,  but  he  wished  to  save 
them ;  and  this  was  the  principal  reason  for  his  delay.  How 
faithfully  he  endeavored  to  do  this,  and  with  how  little  avail, 
will  appear  in  the  narrative.  Amid  the  attacks  of  bitter  po 
litical  foes,  and  the  reproaches  of  well-meaning  but  impatient 
friends,  he  had  a  difficult  path  to  pursue. 

Following  Mr.  Lincoln's  lead,  Mr.  Seward  had  announced 
to  foreign  governments  that  no  change  in  the  institutions  of 
the  South  was  contemplated.  General  McClellan  had  abund 
ant  reason  in  the  President's  position  for  assuring  the  people 
of  Virginia,  as  he  did,  that  he  contemplated  nothing  of  the 
kind.  But  the  people  were  becoming  discontented  with  this 
mild  policy,  and  Congress  obeyed  their  voice  by  an  early 
tabling  of  the  Crittenden  resolution,  which  had  satisfied  that 
body  at  their  session  in  July. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  quick  to  see  the  tendency  of  the  public 
mind,  and  began  at  once  to  shape  his  measures  for  the  re 
sult  which  could  not  long  be  delayed.  On  the  sixth  of  March, 
he  sent  a  message  to  Congress,  recommending  the  passage  of 
a  joint  resolution  which  should  be  substantially  as  follows : 

"Resolved:  That  the  United  States  ought  to  co-operate  with  any 
state  which  may  gradually  adopt  abolishment  of  slavery,  giving  to  such 
state  pecuniary  aid,  to  be  used  by  such  state  in  its  discretion,  to  com 
pensate  for  inconveniences,  public  and  private,  produced  by  such  change 
of  system." 

"If  the  proposition  contained  in  the  resolution  does  not 
meet  the  approval  of  Congress  and  the  country,"  added  Mr, 
Lincoln,  "there  is  an  end;  but  if  it  does  command  such  ap 
proval,  I  deem  it  of  importance  that  the  states  and  peoule 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  349 

immediately  interested  should  be  at  once  distinctly  notified  of 
the  fact,  so  that  they  may  begin  to  consider  whether  to  ac 
cept  or  reject  it."  It  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  opinion  that  one  ot 
the  severest  blows  the  rebellion  could  receive  would  be  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  border  states.  To  deprive  the 
rebels  of  the  hope  of  securing  the  still  loyal  slave  states,  he 
believed  would  be  substantially  to  end  the  rebellion.  If  these 
states  should  abolish  slavery,  it  would  in  effect  be  saying  to 
the  confederacy,  "  We  will  join  you  under  no  circumstances." 
He  believed  that  gradual  was  better  than  sudden  emancipa 
tion  ;  and  that,  as  a  war  measure,  the  government  would  make 
the  scheme  of  compensation  a  paying  one.  Still  true  to  his 
old  tenderness  on  the  subject  of  national  interference  with 
slavery,  he  took  pains  to  show  that  his  plan  threw  the  whole 
matter  into  the  hands  of  the  states  themselves. 

There  was  kindly  warning  to  his  friends  in  the  border  slave 
states,  in  these  words: 

"In  the  annual  message  of  last  December,  I  thought  fit  to  say — '  The 
Union  must  be  preserved ;  and  hence  all  indispensable  means  must  be 
employed/  I  said  this  not  hastily,  but  deliberately.  AVar  has  been 
made,  and  continues  to  be,  an  indispensable  means  to  this  end.  A 
practical  re-acknowledgment  of  the  national  authority  would  render  the 
war  unnecessary,  and  it  would  at  once  cease.  If,  however,  resistance 
continues,  the  war  must  also  continue ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  foresee 
all  the  incidents  which  may  attend,  and  all  the  ruin  which  may  follow  it. 
Such  as  may  seem  indispensable,  or  may  obviously  promise  great  effic 
iency  toward  ending  the  struggle,  must  and  will  come.  The  proposition 
now  made  (though  an  offer  only),  I  hope  it  may  be  esteemed  no  offense 
to  ask  whether  the  pecuniary  consideration  tendered  would  not  be  of 
more  value  to  the  states  and  private  persons  concerned,  than  are  the  in 
stitutions  and  property  in  it,  in  the  present  aspect  of  affairs. 

"  While  it  is  true  that  the  adoption  of  the  proposed  resolution  would 
be  merely  initiatory,  and  not  within  itself  a  practical  measure,  it  is  rec 
ommended  in  the  hope  that  it  would  soon  lead  to  important  practical 
results.  In  full  view  of  my  great  responsibility  to  God  and  my  country, 
I  earnestly  beg  the  attention  of  Congress  and  the  people  to  the  subject." 

It  took  no  special  degree  of  sagacity  to  learn  what  this 
passage  meant ;  but  those  for  whom  this  thoughtful  measure 
was  intended,  though  the  resolution  went  through  both 


350  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Houses  of  Congress,  and  stood  as  a  pledge  of  compensation 
for  emancipation,  turned  their  backs  upon  it.  Only  a  very 
few  members  from  the  border  states  voted  for  it.  But  the 
President  could  not  let  the  matter  stop  there.  He  saw  that 
emancipation  would  surely  come  as  a  war  measure ;  and  that 
these  slave  states  that  had  stood  by  him  through  much  diffi 
culty,  would  lose,  in  that  event,  that  which  the  Constitution 
recognized  as  their  property. 

Before  the  close  of  the  session,  he  invited  the  senators  and 
representatives  from  those  states  to  a  conference,  at  the  Exe 
cutive  Mansion.  It  was  early  in  July ;  and,  while  Congress 
had  been  talking  and  acting,  McClellan  had  been  fighting 
with  very  unsatisfactory  results.  The  nation  was  depressed 
by  reverses ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  wished  to  give  these  men  and 
the  people  they  represented  another  chance  to  escape  from 
the  loss  which  he  felt  must  soon  befall  them.  Having  con 
vened  them,  he  read  to  them  this  carefully  prepared  address, 
in  which  he  argued  his  own  case  and  theirs,  and  appealed  to 
them  to  save  themselves  and  the  country: 

"  Gentlemen — After  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  now  near,  I  shall 
have  no  opportunity  of  seeing  you  for  several  months.  Believing  that 
you  of  the  border  states  hold  more  power  for  good  than  any  other 
equal  number  of  members,  I  feel  it  a  duty  which  I  cannot  justifiably 
waive,  to  make  this  appeal  to  you. 

"I  intend  no  reproach  or  complaint  when  I  assure  you  that,  in  my 
opinion,  if  you  all  had  voted  for  the  resolution  in  the  gradual  emanci 
pation  message  of  last  March,  the  war  would  now  be  substantially 
ended.  And  the  plan  therein  proposed  is  yet  one  of  the  most  potent 
and  swift  means  of  ending  it.  Let  the  states  which  are  in  rebellion  see 
definitely  and  certainly  that  in  no  event  will  the  states  you  represent 
ever  join  their  proposed  confederacy,  and  they  cannot  much  longer 
maintain  the  contest.  But  you  cannot  divest  them  of  their  hope  to 
ultimately  have  you  with  them,  as  long  as  you  show  a  determination  to 
perpetuate  the  institution  within  your  own  states.  Beat  them  at  elec 
tions,  as  you  have  overwhelmingly  done,  and,  nothing  daunted,  they 
still  claim  you  as  their  own.  You  and  I  know  what  the  lever  of  their 
power  is.  Break  that  lever  before  their  faces,  and  they  can  shake  you 
no  more  forever. 

"Most  of  you  have  treated  me  with  kindness  and  consideration;  and 
I  trust  you  will  not  now  think  I  improperly  touch  what  is  exclusively 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  351 

your  own,  when,  for  the  sake  of  the  whole  country,  I  ask,  can  you,  for 
your  states,  do  better  than  to  take  the  course  I  urge?  Discarding 
punctilio  and  maxims  adapted  to  more  manageable  times,  and  looking 
only  to  the  unprecedentedly  stern  facts  of  our  case,  can  you  do  better  in 
any  possible  event?  You  prefer  that  the  constitutional  relation  of  the 
states  to  the  nation  shall  be  practically  restored  without  disturbance  of 
the  institution :  and  if  this  were  done,  my  whole  duty,  in  this  respect, 
under  the  Constitution  and  my  oath  of  office,  would  be  performed. 
But  it  is  not  done,  and  we  are  trying  to  accomplish  it  by  war.  The  in 
cidents  of  the  war  cannot  be  avoided.  If  the  war  continues  long,  as  it 
must  if  the  object  be  not  sooner  attained,  the  institution  in  your  states 
will  be  extinguished  by  mere  friction  and  abrasion — by  the  mere  inci 
dents  of  the  war.  It  will  be  gone,  and  you  will  have  nothing  valuable 
in  lieu  of  it.  Much  of  its  value  is  gone  already.  How  much  better 
for  you  and  for  your  people,  to  take  the  step  which  at  once  shortens  the 
•war,  and  secures  substantial  compensation  for  that  which  is  sure  to  be 
wholly  lost  in  any  other  event!  How  much  better  to  thus  save  the 
money  which  else  we  sink  forever  in  the  war !  I  low  much  better  to  do 
it  while  we  can,  lest  the  war  ere  long  render  us  pecuniarily  unable  to 
do  it!  How  much  better  for  you,  as  seller,  and  the  nation,  as  buyer,  to 
sell  out  and  buy  out  that  without  which  the  war  never  could  have  been, 
than  to  sink  both  the  thing  to  be  sold  and  the  price  of  it  in  cutting  one 
another's  throats ! 

"I  do  not  speak  of  emancipation  at  once,  but  of  a  decision  at  once 
to  emancipate  gradually.  Room  in  South  America  for  colonization  can 
be  obtained  cheaply,  and  in  abundance;  and,  when  numbers  shall  be 
large  enough  to  be  company  and  encouragement  for  one  another,  the 
freed  people  will  not  be  so  reluctant  to  go. 

"I  am  pressed  with  a  difficulty  not  yet  mentioned — one  which  threat 
ens  division  among  those  who,  united,  are  none  too  strong.  An  in 
stance  of  it  is  known  to  you.  General  Hunter  is  an  honest  man.  He 
was,  and  I  hope  still  is,  my  friend.  I  valued  him  none  the  less  for  his 
agreeing  with  me  in  the  general  wish  that  all  men  everywhere  could  be 
free.  lie  proclaimed  all  men  free  within  certain  states,  and  I  repudiated 
the  proclamation.  He  expected  more  good  and  less  harm  from  the 
measure  than  I  could  believe  would  follow.  Yet,  in  repudiating  it,  I 
gave  dissatisfaction,  if  not  offense,  to  many  whose  support  the  country 
cannot  afford  to  lose.  And  this  is  not  the  end  of  it.  The  pressure  in 
this  direction  is  still  upon  me,  and  is  increasing.  By  conceding  what  I 
now  ask,  you  can  relieve  me,  and,  much  more,  can  relieve  the  country  in 
this  important  point. 

"  Upon  these  considerations  I  have  again  begged  your  attention  to 
the  message  of  March  last.  Before  leaving  the  capital,  consider  and 
discuss  it  among  yourselves.  You  are  patriots  and  statesmen,  and  as 


352  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

such  I  pray  you  consider  this  proposition ;  and  at  the  least  comment:!  it 
to  the  consideration  of  your  states  and  people.  As  you  would  perpetu 
ate  popular  government  for  the  best  people  in  the  world,  I  beseech  yon 
that  you  do  in  nowise  omit  this.  Our  common  country  is  in  great  peril, 
demanding  the  loftiest  views  and  boldest  action  to  bring  a  speedy  re 
lief.  Once  relieved,  its  form  of  government  is  saved  to  the  world ;  its 
beloved  history  and  cherished  memories  are  vindicated ;  and  its  happy 
future  fully  assured,  and  rendered  inconceivably  grand.  To  you,  more 
than  to  any  others,  the  privilege  is  given  to  assure  that  happiness  and 
swell  that  grandeur,  and  to  link  your  own  names  therewith  forever." 

What  Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  this  paper,  touching  the  dissatis 
faction  with  which  his  revocation  of  General  Hunter's  order 
of  emancipation  had  been  received,  was  true.  People  were 
tired  of  the  governmental  protection  of  slavery  in  the  rebel 
states ;  and  they  had  reason  to  be..  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  all  this, 
but  he  could  not  forsake  his  friends,  until  he  had  tried  every 
means  to  save  them.  In  his  revocation  of  General  Hunter's 
order,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  touching  appeals  that 
man  ever  penned,  occurs — an  appeal  which  the  mistaken  men 
before  him  had  already  had  the  opportunity  of  reading.  In 
that  paper,  after  quoting  the  resolution  which  Congress  had 
passed  pledging  the  country  to  compensation  for  emancipa 
tion,  he  said: 

"  To  the  people  of  those  states  I  now  earnestly  appeal.  I  do  not 
argue — I  beseech  you  to  make  the  argument  for  yourselves.  You  can 
not,  if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times.  I  beg  of  you  a 
calm  and  enlarged  consideration  of  them,  ranging,  if  it  may  be,  far 
above  personal  and  partisan  politics.  This  proposal  makes  common 
cause  for  a  common  object,  casting  no  reproaches  upon  any.  It  acts  not 
the  Pharisee.  The  changes  it  contemplates  would  come  gently  as  the 
dews  of  Heaven,  not  rending  nor  wrecking  anything.  Will  you  not  em 
brace  it?  So  much  good  has  not  been  done  by  one  effort  in  all  past 
time,  as^  in  the  providence  of  God,  it  is  now  your  high  privilege  to  do. 
May  the  vast  future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have  neglected  it." 

Still  forbearing,  still  arguing,  still  beseeching,  Mr.  Lincoln 
stood  before  these  border-state  legislators,  for  whose  sake  he 

o 

was  suffering  sharp  reproach  in  the  house  of  his  best  friends ; 
but  they  were  unmoved.  They  could  not  read  the  signs  of 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  353 

the  times.  Only  nine  of  the  twenty-nine  who  responded  gave 
words  of  friendliness  and  approval.  If,  since  then,  they  have 
found  themselves  and  their  friends  in  distress  through  the  de 
struction  of  their  property,  they  can  have  no  reproaches  to 
cast  upon  the  patient  man  who  so  faithfully  besought  them  to 
save  themselves  while  there  was  an  opportunity. 

Two  acts  were  passed  by  this  session  which  respectively 
called  out  a  message  from  the  President.  The  confiscation 
act,  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made,  touched  a  sub 
ject  on  which  he  had  peculiar  views.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
express  in  the  English  lanffuafire  the  basis  of  the  rio-ht  of 

x  O  O         O  o 

Congress  to  free  the  slaves  of  rebels,  in  clearer  and  more 
unanswerable  tones  than  Mr.  Lincoln  used  when  he  wrote: 
"It  is  startling  to  say  that  Congress  can  free  a  slave  within  a 
state,  and  yet,  were  it  said  that  the  ownership  of  the  slave 
had  first  been  transferred  to  the  nation,  and  that  Congress 
had  then  liberated  him,  the  difficulty  would  vanish ;  and  this 
is  the  real  case.  The  traitor  against  the  general  government 
forfeits  his  slave,  at  least  as  justly  as  he  does  any  other  prop 
erty  ;  and  he  forfeits  both  to  the  government  against  which 
he  offends.  The  government,  so  far  as  there  can  be  ownership, 
owns  the  forfeited  slaves;  and  the  question  for  Congress,  in 
regard  to  them,  is, — Shall  they  be  made  free,  or  sold  to  new 
masters?  I  see  no  objection  to  Congress  deciding  in  advance 
that  they  should  be  free."  The  argument  of  a  whole  volume 
would  not  make  the  subject  clearer. 

The  other  act  abolished  slavery  in  tho  District  of  Columbia , 
and  he  merely  pointed  out  an  oversight  in  the  bill,  expressing 
at  the  same  time  his  gratification  that  it  recognized  the  two 
principles  of  colonization  and  compensation.  It  must  have 
been  with  peculiar  satisfaction  that  he  thus  completed  a  work 
which  he  began  while  he  was  a  member  of  Congress  himself, 
many  years  before. 

Late  in  the  session,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  to  Congress  the  draft 

of  a  bill  for  the  compensation  of  any  state  that  might  abolish 

slavery  within  its  limits ;  which,  although  it  was  referred  to  a 

committee,  was  not  acted  upon,  as  there  appeared  no  disposi- 

23 


854  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

tion  on  the  part  of  the  border  states  to  respond  to  the  action 
which  Congress  had  already  taken. 

Meantime,  and  especially  after  the  enactment  of  the  con 
fiscation  bill,  presses  and  people  maintained  their  clamor  for  a 
sweeping  proclamation  of  emancipation.  The  clamor  took  a  di 
rect  and  definite  form  in  a  letter  addressed  by  Horace  Greeley, 
through  the  New  York  Tribune.  The  letter  was  severe  in  its 
terms,  and  intemperate  in  spirit.  Any  President  who  had  oc 
cupied  the  office  previous  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  would  have  passed 
over  such  a  letter  in  silence,  however  much  it  might  have  an 
noyed  or  pained  him.  Mr.  Lincoln,  however,  never  thought 
of  his  dignity,  and  saw  no  reason  why  the  President  of  the 
United  States  should  hot  appear  in  a  newspaper,  as  well  as 
other  men.  He  accordingly  replied  to  Mr.  Greeley,  under 
date  of  August  twenty-second,  in  a  letter  which,  for  concise 
ness  and  lucidity,  may  well  be  regarded  as  a  model,  whether 
the  position  assumed  in  it  was  sound  or  otherwise.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  wrote  as  follows : 

"Hon.  Horace  Greeley,  Dear  Sir:  I  have  just  read  yours  of  the 
nineteenth  instant,  addressed  to  myself  through  the  New  York  Tribune. 

"  If  there  be  in  it  any  statements  or  assumptions  of  fact  which  I  may 
know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not  now  and  here  controvert  them. 

"If  there  be  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe  to  be  falsely  drawn, 
I  do  not  now  and  here  argue  against  them. 

"If  there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I 
waive  it  in  deference  to  an  old  friend  whose  heart  I  have  always  sup 
posed  to  be  right. 

"As  to  the  policy  I  'se^m  to  be  pursuing/  as  you  say,  I  have  not 
meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save  the  Union.  I  would 
save  it  in  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 

"  The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer  the 
Union  will  be — the  Union  as  it  was. 

"If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could 
at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

"  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could 
at  the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

"My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save  or 
destroy  slavery. 

"  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do 
it;  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I 

* 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  355 

could  do  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do 
that. 

"  What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  be 
lieve  it  helps  to  save  this  Union;  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because 
I  do  not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union. 

"I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the 
cause,  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  believe  doing  more  will  help  the 
cause. 

"I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors,  and  I  shall 
adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

"I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my  views  of  official 
duty,  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-expressed  personal  wish 
that  all  men  everywhere  could  be  free. 

"Yours,  A.  LINCOLN." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  anxious  to  take  no  steps  which  he  should 
be  obliged  to  retrace*  through  the  lack  of  popular  support, 
and  at  this  time  he  was  carefully  measuring  the  public  opinion 
on  the  subject  of  emancipation.  A  part  of  the  preliminary 
work  he  had  accomplished.  He  had  performed  with  the  ten- 
derest  and  most  assiduous  fidelity  all  his  duty  toward  the  bor 
der  slave  states.  He  had  warned  them,  besought  them,  ad 
vised  them,  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  an  event  which  he  felt 
certain  would  come.  He  knew  that  the  institution  of  slavery 
would  not  be  worth  a  straw,  in  any  state,  after  it  should  be 
destroyed  in  the  rebel  states.  But  they  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
his  warnings  and  entreaties ;  and  in  this  manner,  if  not  in  the 
manner  desired,  took  themselves  out  of  his  way. 

His  letter  to  Horace  Greeley  was,  without  doubt,  intended 
to  prepare  the  mind  of  the  country  for  emancipation,  and  to 
exhibit  the  principles  and  exigencies  by  which  he  should  be 
controlled  in  proclaiming  it.  He  was  clearing  away  obstacles, 
and  preparing  his  ground;  and,  in  connection  with  events 
which  wait  for  record,  the  time  for  action  came  at  last. 

Mr.  Cameron  was  not  very  successful  in  the  administration 
of  the  affairs  of  his  bureau.  It  is  no  derogation  to  his  ability 
as  a  statesman  to  say  that,  for  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  the 
war  office,  at  the  time  he  occupied  it,  he  had  no  eminent  fit 
ness.  It  was  not  the  office  he  would  have  chosen  for  himself. 
He  had  immense  and  almost  countless  contracts  at  his  dis 
posal,  and  could  give  to  them  but  little  personal  care.  T&it 


356  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

he  was  overreached,  under  the  circumstances,  was  almost  a 
matter  of  course,  and  many  of  his  contracts  were  very  bad 
ones.  Congress,  after  his  resignation,  censured  him  for  his 
loose  way  of  doing  business,  in  intrusting  Alexander  Cum- 
mings  of  New  York  with  the  expenditure  of  large  sums  of 
money  without  restriction;  but  Mr.  Lincoln,  by  a  special 
message,  assumed  all  the  responsibility  of  Mr.  Cummings' 
appointment  to  this  duty  and  responsibility.  Mr.  Cameron 
resigned  his  position  on  the  llth  of  January,  1862 ;  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  showed  what  he  thought  of  the  charges  of  fraud 
against  him,  by  appointing  him  minister  to  Russia.  Never 
theless,  it  was  to  be  said  of  him  that  Mr.  Chase  found  it  difficult 
to  raise  money  while  he  remained  to  make  contracts.  He  re 
signed  while  the  House  was  busy  with  overhauling  his  affairs ; 
and  it  occurred  that  he  sent  in  his  resignation  on  the  same  day 
on  which  Mr.  Dawes  of  Massachusetts  was  making  a  power 
ful  speech  against  him,  and  on  which  the  special  committee 
on  government  contracts  made  a  report  severely  condemning 
his  operations. 

Mr.  Lincoln  appointed  Edwin  M.  Stanton  of  Ohio  to  the 
office  thus  vacated.  Mr.  Stanton  was  a  democrat,  and  had 
been  a  member  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  cabinet — was,  indeed,  the 
first  one  in  that  cabinet  to  protest  against  the  downright  trea 
son  into  which  it  was  drifting.  He  was  a  man  of  indomitable 
energy,  devoted  loyalty  and  thorough  honesty.  Contractors 
could  not  manipulate  him,  and  traitors  could  not  deceive  him. 
Impulsive,  perhaps,  but  true ;  willful,  it  is  possible,  but  placa 
ble;  impatient,  but  persistent  and  efficient, — he  became,  at 
once,  one  of  the  most  marked  and  important  of  the  members  of 
the  cabinet.  Mr.  Lincoln  loved  him  and  believed  in  him  from 
first  to  last.  When  inquired  of  concerning  the  reasons  for 
his  appointment,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  rather  wished,  at  first, 
to  appoint  a  man  from  one  of  the  border  states,  but  he  knew 
the  New  England  people  would  object;  and  then,  again,  it 
would  have  given  him  great  satisfaction  to  appoint  a  man 
from  New  England,  but  that  would  displease  the  border  states. 
On  the  whole,  he  thought  he  had  better  take  a  man  from  some 
intervening  territory;  "and,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  gentlemen," 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  357 

said  he,  "I  don't  believe  Stanton  knows  where  he  belongs 
himself."  The  gentlemen  proceeding  to  discuss  Mr.  Stanton's 
impulsiveness,  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "Well,  we  may  have  to  treat 
him  as  they  are  sometimes  obliged  to  treat  a  Methodist  min 
ister  I  know  of  out  west.  He  gets  wrought  up  to  so  high  a 
pitch  of  excitement  in  his  prayers  and  exhortations,  that  they 
are  obliged  to  put  bricks  into  his  pockets  to  keep  him  down. 
We  may  be  obliged  to  serve  Stanton  the  same  way,  but  I 
guess  we  '11  let  him  jump  awhile  first." 

The  country  has  sometimes  thought  the  time  for  bricks  had 
come;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  have 
had  greatest  cause  of  complaint.  Mr.  Stanton's  place  in  his 
tory  will  be  a  proud  one. 

Malcontents,  who  felt  that  everything  went  wrong  because 
there  was  something  wrong  in  the  cabinet,  were  much  en 
couraged  by  the  change  that  had  been'  made,  and  personally 
and  by  letter  urged  Mr.  Lincoln  to  make  further  changes. 
A  number  of  them  called  upon  him  to  insist  on  changes  that 
they  considered  absolutely  necessary.  Mr.  Lincoln  heard 
them  through,  and  then,  with  his  peculiar  smile,  said,  "  Gen 
tlemen,  the  case  reminds  me  of  a  story  of  an  old  friend  of 
mine  out  in  Illinois.  His  homestead  was  very  much  infested 
with  those  little  black  and  white  animals  that  we  needn't  call 
by  name;  and,  after  losing  his  patience  with  them,  he  deter 
mined  to  sally  out  and  inflict  upon  them  a  general  slaughter. 
He  iook  gun,  clubs  and  dogs,  and  at  it  he  went,  but  stopped 
after  killing  one,  and  returned  home.  When  his  neighbors 
asked  him  why  he  had  not  fulfilled  his  threat  of  killing  all 
there  were  on  his  place,  he  replied  that  his  experience  with 
the  one  he  had  killed  was  such  that  he  thought  he  had  better 
stop  where  he  was." 

This  story  was  told  with  no  disrespect  to  Mr.  Cameron,  or 
to  the  other  members  of  his  cabinet,  for  he  honored  them  all ; 
but  it  was  told  to  get  rid  of  his  troublesome  advisers.  They 
went  away  forgetting  that  they  had  failed  to  make  any  im 
pression  on  the  President — forgetting  that  they  had  failed  in 
their  errand  utterly — and  laughing  over  the  story  by  which 
the  President  had  dismissed  them. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

A  CIVILIAN,  ignorant  of  the  art  of  war,  can  only  judge  a 
military  man  by  what  he  accomplishes  in  the  long  run  by  his 
policy  and  action ;  and  it  is  difficult  for  such  a  judge  to  per 
ceive  what  General  McClellan  accomplished,  with  his  magnifi 
cent  army  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  as  good  soldiers 
as  ever  the  sun  shone  upon — well  drilled,  well  fed,  well  clothed 
and  well  armed — but  to  scatter  and  wear  out  that  army,  vol 
unteer  general  advice  to  a  government  that  was  presumed  to 
be  competent  to  the  management  of  its  own  affairs,  and  win 
the  doubtful  honor  of  becoming  the  favorite  of  men  w^ho, 
from  the  first,  opposed  the  war,  and  threw  all  possible  obsta 
cles  in  the  way  of  its  successful  prosecution.  The  whole  his 
tory  of  McClellan's  operations  is  a  history  of  magnificent 
preparations  and  promises,  of  fatal  hesitations  and  procrasti 
nations,  of  clamoring  for  more  preparations,  and  justifications 
of  hesitations  and  procrastinations,  of  government  indulgence 
and  forbearance,  of  military  intrigues  within  the  camp,  of 
popular  impatience  and  alarms,  and  of  the  waste  of  great 
means  and  golden  opportunities.  Even  the  opportunity  of 
becoming  "the  hero  of  Antietam"  came  to  General  McClellan 
through  his  culpable  remissness  in  permitting  the  enemy  to 
cross  the  Potomac ;  and  this  victory  lost  all  its  value  by  his 
failure  to  gather  its  fruits. 

When  General  McClellan  assumed  command,  he  found 
waiting  for  him  fifty  thousand  men,  more  or  less,  in  and 
around  Washington.  He  assumed  command  during  the  last 
days  of  July ;  and,  within  a  period  of  less  than  three  months, 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LIXCOLK.  359 

that  army  was  raised  to  a  force  of  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  men,  with  five  hundred  pieces  of  artillery. 
The  people  gave  him  more  men  than  any  one  commander  was 
ever  known  to  handle  effectively  in  the  field ;  and  the  govern 
ment  lavishly  bestowed  upon  his  army  all  the  material  of  war. 
The  unfortunate  matter  of  Ball's  Bluff,  which  occurred  on  the 
twenty-second  of  October,  has  already  found  record.  This 
was  the  first  return  for  the  fresh  means  that  the  government 
had  placed  at  the  commanding  General's  disposal.  The  Po 
tomac  was  blockaded  by  a  small  force  of  rebels,  and  both  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  War  felt  that  there  was  no  neces 
sity  for  permitting  this  vexatious  and  humiliating  blockade  to 
continue.  They  tried  to  induce  McClellan  to  aid  in  this  busi 
ness  ;  and,  at  one  time  in  October,  he  agreed  to  send  four 
thousand  men  to  co-operate  with  a  naval  force  for  this  pur 
pose;  but  he  falsified  his  promise,  on  the  ground  that  his 
engineers  told  him  that  so  large  a  force  could  not  be  landed. 
It  did  not  matter  that  the  department  assumed  the  responsi 
bility  of  landing  the  troops.  It  did  not  matter,  even,  that  he 
made  another  promise  to  send  the  troops.  They  were  never 
sent,  the  second  refusal  being  based  upon  his  fear  of  bringing 
on  a  general  engagement,  which  was  exactly  what  ought  to 
have  been  brought  on.  Captain  Craven  of  the  navy,  with 
whom  these  troops  were  to  co-operate,  threw  up  his  command 
in  disgust,  and  the  rebels  never  were  driven  away  from  the 
Potomac.  They  kept  this  grand  highway  closed  until  .the 
following  spring,  and  then  retired  of  their  own  accord,  and  at 
leisure. 

The  confidence  in  General  McClellan  on  the  part  of  the 
government  and  the  country  generally  was  at  this  time  un 
bounded  ;  and  he  could  not  appear  among  his  soldiers  without 
such  demonstrations  of  enthusiastic  affection  as  few  command 
ers  have  ever  received.  On  the  first  of  November  he  succeeded 
General  Scott  in  the  command  of  all  the  armies  of  the  Union, 
still  retaining  personal  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac ; 
but  he  seemed  to  be  unable  to  move.  Cautious,  hesitating, 
always  finding  fresh  obstacles  to  a  movement,  he  permitted 


360  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  golden  days  of  autumn  to  pass  away.  In  the  meantime, 
the  government  was  urging  him  to  do  something,  as  the  rebel 
forces  were  massing  in  his  front,  and  the  country  was  clamorous 
for  action.  Instead  of  holding  the  commanding  General  re 
sponsible  for  these  delays,  the  country  blamed  the  govern 
ment,  and  manifested  its  dissatisfaction  by  its  votes  in  the  fall 
elections. 

All  that  autumn  passed  away,  and  not  a  blow  was  struck. 
The  Potomac  was  closed  to  government  war  vessels  and  trans 
ports,  by  a  few  batteries  which  the  over-cautious  General  was 
afraid  to  touch. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  determined  to  break  the  spell  which 
seemed  to  hold  the  General's  mind ;  and,  on  the  twenty-seventh 
of  January,  he  issued  an  order  that  on  the  twenty-second  day 
of  February,  1862,  there  should  be  a  general  movement  of 
the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States,  against  the 
insurgent  armies — especially  the  army  at  and  about  Fortress 
Monroe,  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  the  army  of  Western  Vir 
ginia,  the  army  near  Mumfordsville,  Kentucky,  the  army  and 
flotilla  at  Cairo,  and  a  naval  force  in  the  gulf  of  Mexico.  He 
further  declared  "that  the  heads  of  departments,  and  espec 
ially  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  of  the  Navy,  with  all  their 
subordinates,  and  the  General-in-Chief  with  all  other  com 
manders  and  subordinates  of  land  and  naval  forces,  will  sev 
erally  be  held  to  their  strict  and  full  responsibilities  for  prompt 
execution  of  this  order."  On  the  thirty-first  of  January — 
four  days  afterward — he  issued  another  order,  specially  to  the 
army  of  the  Potomac,  to  engage,  on  or  before  the  twenty- 
second  of  February,  in  the  attempt  to  seize  upon  and  occupy 
a  point  upon  the  railroad  south-west  of  Manassas  Junction, 
the  details  of  the  movement  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 

To  this  last  order  of  the  President,  General  McClellan  re 
plied  in  a  long  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  He  objected 
to  the  President's  plan,  that  the  roads  would  be  bad  at  the 
season  proposed ;  and  wished  to  substitute  a  plan  of  his  own, 
which  had  in  its  favor  a  better  soil  for  the  moving  of  troops. 


LIFE   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  361 

He  wished  to  move  by  the  Lower  Eappahannock,  making 
Urbana  his  base.  He  would  throw  upon  the  new  line  from  one 
hundred  and  ten  thousand  to  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
troops,  according  to  circumstances,  hoping  to  use  the  latter 
number,  by  bringing  such  fresh  troops  into  Washington  as 
would  protect  the  capital.  He  "respectfully  but  firmly"  ad 
vised  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  make  this  substitution  of. 
his  own  for  the  President's  plan.  So  firm  was  he  that  he  was 
willing  to  say:  "I  will  stake  my  life,  my  reputation,  on  the 
result, — more  than  that,  I  will  stake  on  it  the  success  of  our 
cause."  His  judgment,  he  declared,  was  against  the  move 
ment  on  Manassas.  On  the  third  of  February,  Mr.  Lincoln 
addressed  a  note  to  the  General  on  this  difference  of  opinion, 
which  ought  to  have  shown  him  that  his  superior  was  a  com 
petent  adviser  and  a  keen  critic : 

"My  dear  Sir: — You  and  I  have  distinct  and  different  plans  for  a 
movement  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac;  yours  to  be  done  by  the  Chesa 
peake,  up  the  Rappahannock,  to  Urbana,  and  across  land  to  the  termi 
nus  of  the  railroad  on  the  York  River;  mine  to  move  directly  to  a 
point  on  the  railroad  south-west  of  Manassas.  If  you  will  give  satis 
factory  answers  to  the  following  questions,  I  shall  gladly  yield  my  plans 
to  yours: 

"1.  Does  not  your  plan  involve  a  greatly  larger  expenditure  of 
time  and  money  than  mine  ? 

"  2.     Wherein  is  a  victory  more  certain  by  your  plan  than  mine  ? 

"  3.     Wherein  is  a  victory  more  valuable  by  your  plan  than  mine  ? 

"  4.  In  fact,  would  it  not  be  less  valuable  in  this :  that  it  would. break 
no  great  line  of  the  enemy's  communications,  while  mine  would? 

"5.  In  case  of  disaster,  would  not  a  retreat  be  more  difficult  by 
your  plan  than  mine  ?  " 

General  McClellan  replied  to  this  through  the  Secretary  of 
War,  after  his  fashion ;  but  the  President  was  not  convinced, 
and  finally  agreed  to  submit  the  two  plans  to  a  council  of 
twelve  officers.  This  council,  eight  to  four,  decided  in  favor 
of  the  General's  plan.  The  President  acquiesced;  but  the 
rebels  rendered  both  plans  useless  by  withdrawing  from  Ma 
nassas  on  the  ninth  of  March  to  the  other  side  of  the  Kappa- 


362  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

hannock — which  date  will  be  seen  to  be  two  weeks  later 
than  the  date  fixed  for  the  advance  of  all  the  armies  by  the 
President. 

On  the  eighth  of  March,  the  President  ordered  General 
McClellan  to  organize  that  part  of  his  army  which  he  pro 
posed  to  engage  in  active  operations,  into  four  Army  Corps,  to 
.be  commanded  respectively  by  General  McDowell,  General 
Sumner,  General  Heintzelman  and  General  Keyes;  and  di 
rected  the  order  to  be  executed  with  such  dispatch  as  not  to 
delay  operations  already  determined  on — alluding  to  the  move 
ment  by  the  Chesapeake  and  Rappahannock.  On  the  same 
day,  he  issued  another  order:  that  no  change  of  base  should 
take  place  without  leaving  in  and  about  Washington  such  an 
army  as  should  make  the  city  secure ;  that  no  more  than  two 
army  corps  should  move  before  the  Potomac  should  be  cleared 
of  rebel  batteries;  and  that  the  movement  should  begin  as 
early  as  the  eighteenth  of  March. 

On  the  next  day,  as  has  already  been  stated,  the  enemy  re 
tired  unsuspected  and  undisturbed  from  his  defenses ;  and  then 
General  McClellan  moved  forward,  not  to  pursue,  according 
to  his  own  authority,  but  to  give  his  troops  some  exercise,  and 
a  taste  of  the  march  and  bivouac,  before  more  active  opera 
tions.  On  the  fifteenth,  the  army  moved  back  to  Alexandria. 

On  the  eleventh  of  March,  General  McClellan  was  relieved 
from  the  command  of  other  military  departments,  because  he 
had  personally  taken  the  field.  Major-General  Halleck  re 
ceived  the  command  of  the  department  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
General  Fremont  that  of  the  mountain  department.  On  the 
thirteenth,  a  council  of  war  decided  that,  as  the  enemy  had 
retreated  behind  the  Rappahannock,  the  new  base  of  opera 
tions  should  be  Fortress  Monroe,  on  certain  conditions  which 
touched  the  neutralization  of  the  power  of  the  Merrimac,  (an 
iron  plated  rebel  vessel  which  had  already  destroyed  the  frig 
ates  Cumberland  and  Congress,  and  been  beaten  back  by  the 
Monitor,)  means  of  transportation,  and  naval  auxiliaries  suf 
ficient  to  ^ilence  the  batteries  on  York  River.  On  the  same 
day,  Mr.  Stanton  wrote  to  General  McClellan,  stating  that  the 


LIFE    OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  363 

President  saw  no  objection  to  the  plan,  but. directing  that  such 
a  force  should  be  left  at  Manassas  Junction  as  would  make  it 
entirely  certain  that  the  enemy  should  not  repossess  it,  that 
Washington  should  be  left  secure,  and  that,  whatever  place 
might  be  chosen  as  the  new  base,  the  army  should  move  at 
once  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy,  by  some  route. 

The  President  was  impatient  for  action.  Not  a  blow  had 
been  struck.  Back  from  the  Potomac  blockade,  and  back 
from  Manassas,  the  enemy  had  been  permitted  to  retire  with 
out  the  loss  of  a  man  or  a  gun. 

On  the  thirty-first  of  March,  Mr.  Lincoln  ordered  Blenker's 
division  from  the  army  of  the  Potomac  to  join  General  Fre 
mont,  who  had  importuned  him  for  a  larger  force,  and  who 
was  supported  in  his  request  by  exacting  friends.  In  a  note  to 
General  McClellan,  he  said, — "I  write  this  to  assure  you  that 
I  did  so  with  great  pain,  understanding  that  you  would  wish  it 
otherwise.  If  you  could  know  the  full  pressure  of  the  case, 
I  am  confident  that  you  would  justify  it."  General  Banks, 
who  had  been  ordered  to  cover  Washington  by  occupying 
Manassas,  was  ordered  on  the  first  of  April  to  force  General 
Jackson  back  from  Winchester. 

Transportation  had  already  been  provided  by  the  War  De 
partment  for  moving  the  troops  to  any  new  base  that  might 
be  determined  on,  and  General  McClellan  was  not  obliged  to 
wait.  On  the  first  of  April,  there  were  under  his  command, 
by  the  official  report  of  the  Adjutant-general,  146,255  men  in 
the  four  corps,  with  regular  infantry  and  cavalry  and  other 
troops  to  raise  the  number  to  158,419.  In  all  the  orders 
given  by  the  President  concerning  the  movements  of  this  army, 
there  was  one  condition  that  he  insisted  upon,  viz,  that  troops 
should  be  left  sufficient  to  protect  Washington ;  and  by  General 
McClellan's  order  only  twenty  thousand  effective  men  were  to 
be  left  with  General  Wads  worth,  the  military  governor  of  the 
District.  The  force  was  much  smaller  than  was  necessary, 
according  to  General  McClellan's  previous  calculations ;  and 
General  Wadsworth  was  so  much  impressed  with  its  inade 
quacy  that  he  called  the  attention  of  the  war  department  to 


364  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN". 

the  subject.  The  letter  was  referred  to  Adjutant-general 
Thomas  and  General  E.  A.  Hitchcock,  whose  decision  was 
embodied  in  the  words:  "In  view  of  the  opinion  expressed  by 
the  council  of  the  commanders  of  army  corps,  of  the  force 
necessary  for  the  capital,  though  not  numerically  stated,  and 
of  the  force  represented  by  General  McClellan  as  left  for 
that  purpose,  we  are  of  opinion  that  the  requirement  of  the 
President  that  this  city  shall  be  left  entirely  secure,  not  only 
in  the  opinion  of  the  General-in-chief,  but  that  of  the  com 
manders  of  all  the  army  corps  also,  has  not  been  fully  complied 
with."  In  the  meantime,  General  McClellan  had  gone  for 
ward  to  Fortress  Monroe,  and  all  but  two  corps  of  the  troops 
had  left  for  the  new  base.  When,  therefore,  Generals  Thomas 
and  Hitchcock  made  their  report,  and  the  President  saw  that 
Washington  was  about  to  be  left  without  sufficient  defense, 
he  directed  the  Secretary  of  War  to  order  that  one  of  the  two 
corps  not  then  embarked  should  remain  in  front  of  Washing 
ton,  and  that  the  other  corps  should  go  forward  as  speedily  as 
possible.  This  was  under  date  of  April  third.  The  first 
corps,  under  General  McDowell,  was  designated  for  this  pro 
tective  service,  numbering  38,454  men.  Two  new  military 
departments  were  at  once  erected — the  Department  of  the 
Rappahannock,  under  General  McDowell,  and  the  Depart 
ment  of  the  Shenandoah,  lying  between  the  mountain  depart 
ment  and  the  Blue  Ridge,  under  General  Banks. 

General  McClellan  pushed  a  portion  of  his  troops  toward 
Yorktown  at  once — toward  a  line  of  intrenchments  held  by 
the  enemy,  stretching  across  the  Peninsula.  On  the  fifth  of 
April  he  wrote  to  the  President,  dating  his  letter  "  Xear  York- 
town,"  and  stating  that  the  enemy  were  in  large  force  in  his 
front,  and  that  they  apparently  intended  to  make  a  determined 
resistance.  At  that  time,  the  rebel  force  at  that  point,  accord 
ing  to  subsequent  reports  by  the  rebels  themselves,  did  not 
exceed  ten  thousand  men.  No  one  doubts  now  that  General 
McClellan' s  cautiousness  betrayed  his  judgment,  and  that  a 
strong  and  well-directed  attack  would  have  swept  the  rebels 
out  of  their  works. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  365 

111  this  letter,  lie  began  his  long-continued  complaint  of  in 
adequate  force.  He  begged  the  President  to  reconsider  his 
order  detaching  the  first  corps  from  his  command,  as  it  was 
his  opinion  that  he  should  have  to  fight  all  the  available  force 
of  the  rebels,  not  far  from  the  place  where  he  was  writing. 
If  he  could  not  have  the  whole  corps,  he  begged  for  Franklin 
and  his  division.  On  the  sixth,  Mr.  Stanton  replied  that  Sum- 
ner's  troops  were  on  the  way  to  him,  that  Franklin's  division 
was  on  the  advance  to  Manassas,  and  that  there  were  110  means 
of  transportation  to  send  it  forward  in  time  for  service  in  his 
operations.  "All  in  the  power  of  the  government,"  added 
the  Secretary,  "  shall  be  done  to  sustain  you,  as  occa*sion  may 
require." 

Another  day  passed  away ;  and,  on  the  date  of  Mr.  Stan- 
ton's- dispatch,  General  McClellan  wrote  again,  begging  for 
Franklin's  division,  complaining  that  he  had  no  sufficient 
transportation,  and  stating  that  the  order  forming  new  depart 
ments  deprived  him  of  the  power  of  ordering  up  wagons  and 
troops,  absolutely  necessary  for  his  advance  on  Richmond. 
He  requested  that  the  material  he  had  prepared  and  necessarily 
left  behind,  with  wagon  trains,  ammunition,  and  "Woodbury's 
brigade,  might  be  subject  to  his  order.  Mr.  Lincoln  immedi 
ately  telegraphed  him  that  his  order  for  forwarding  what  he 
had  demanded,  including  Woodbury's  brigade,  was  not,  and 
would  not  be  interfered  with,  informing  him  at  the  same  time 
that  he  had  then  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  troops  with 
him,  independent  of  those  under  General  Wool's  command. 
Mr.  Lincoln  closed  his  dispatch  with  the  words:  "I  think 
you  had  better  break  the  enemy's  line  from  Yorktowii  to 
Warwick  Eiver  at  once.  They  will  probably  use  time  as  ad 
vantageously  as  you  can." 

Mr.  Lincoln,  like  the  whole  country,  was  convinced  that 
there  was  no  such  force  behind  those  works  as  the  fears  of  the 
General  had  counted  there;  and  it  is  now  humiliating  to  learn 
from  the  official  report  of  the  rebel  commander  Magruder, 
that,  "with  five  thousand  men,  exclusive  of  the  garrisons,  we 
(they)  stopped  and  held  in  check  over  one  hundred  thousand 


866  LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

of  the  enemy."  At  Gloucester,  Yorktown  and  Mulberry  Is 
land,  he  was  obliged  to  put  garrisons  amounting  to  six  thou 
sand  men,  and  he  had  only  five  thousand  men  left  to  defend 
a  line  of  thirteen  mile?.  With  a  hundred  thousand  men  at 
his  back,  General  McClellan  went  to  work  with  shovels  to 
begin  a  regular  siege.  On  the  ninth  of  April,  Mr.  Lincoln 
wrote  him  a  letter  which  is  so  full  of  wise  counsel,  kind  criti 
cism,  and  personal  good-will,  that  it  deserves  record  here : 

"  My  Dear  Sir — Your  dispatches,  complaining  that  you  are  not  prop 
erly  sustained,  while  they  do  not  offend  me,  do  pain  me  very  much. 

"  Blenker's  division  was  withdrawn  from  you  before  you  left  here ;  and 
you  kno\f  the  pressure  under  which  I  did  it,  and,  as  I  thought,  acqui 
esced  in  it — certainly  not  without  reluctance. 

"  After  you  left,  I  ascertained  that  less  than  twenty  thousand  unor 
ganized  men,  without  a  single  field  battery,  were  all  you  designed  to  be 
lefc  for  the  defence  of  Washington  and  Manassas  Junction;  and  part  of 
this  even  was  to  go  to  General  Hooker's  old  position.  General  Banks' 
corps,  once  designed  for  Manassas  Junction,  was  diverted  and  tied  up 
on  the  line  of  Winchester  and  Strasburg,  and  could  not  leave  it  without 
again  exposing  the  upper  Potomac  and  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail 
road.  This  presented,  or  would  present,  when  McDowell  and  Sumner 
should  be  gone,  a  great  temptation  to  the  enemy  to  turn  back  from  the 
Rappahannock  and  sack  Washington.  My  implicit  order  that  Washing 
ton  should,  by  the  judgment  of  all  the  commanders  of  army  corps,  be 
left  entirely  secure,  had  been  neglected.  It  was  precisely  this  that 
drove  me  to  detain  McDowell. 

"  I  do  not  forget  that  I  was  satisfied  with  your  arrangement  to  leave 
Banks  at  Manassas  Junction :  but,  when  that  arrangement  was  broken 
up,  and  nothing  was  substituted  for  it,  of  course  I  was  constrained  to 
substitute  something  for  it  myself.  And  allow  me  to  ask,  do  you  really 
think  I  should  permit  the  line  from  Richmond,  via  Manassas  Junction, 
to  this  city,  to  be  entirely  open,  except  what  resistance  could  be  pre 
sented  by  less  than  twenty  thousand  unorganized  troops?  This  is  a 
question  which  the  country  will  not  allow  me  to  evade. 

"  There  is  a  curious  mystery  about  the  number  of  troops  now  with 
you.  When  I  telegraphed  you  on  the  sixth,  saying  you  had  over  a 
hundred  thousand  with  you,  I  had  just  obtained  from  the  Secretary  of 
War  a  statement  taken,  as  he  said,  from  your  own  returns,  making  one 
hundred  and  eight  thousand  then  with  you  and  en  route  to  you.  You 
now  say  you  will  have  but  eighty-five  thousand  when  all  en  route  to  you 
shall  have  reached  you.  How  can  the  discrepancy  of  twenty-three 
thousand  be  accounted  for? 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  367 

"As  to  General  Wool's  command,  I  understand  it.  is  doing  for  you 
precisely  what  a  like  number  of  your  own  would  have  to  do  if  that 
command  was  away. 

"  I  suppose  the  whole  force  which  has  gone  forward  for  you  is  with 
you  by  this  time.  And,  if  so,  I  think  it  is  the  precise  time  for  you  to 
strike  a  blow.  By  delay,  the  enemy  will  relatively  gain  upon  you — 
that  is,  he  will  gain  faster  by  fortifications  and  reinforcements  than  you 
can  by  reinforcements  alone.  And  once  more  let  me  tell  you,  it  is  in 
dispensable  to  you  that  you  strike  a  blow.  I  am  powerless  to  help  this. 
You  will  do  me  the  justice  to  remember  I  always  insisted  that  going 
down  the  bay  in  search  of  a  field,  instead  of  fighting  at  or  near  Ma- 
nassas,  was  only  shifting,  and  not  surmounting,  a  difficulty;  that  we 
would  find  the  same  enemy,  and  the  same  or  equal  intrenchments,  at 
either  place.  The  country  will  not  fail  to  note — is  now  noting — that 
the  present  hesitation  to  move  upon  an  intrenched  enemy  is  but  the 
story  of  Manassas  repeated. 

"  I  beg  to  assure  you  that  I  have  never  written  to  you  or  spoken  to 
you  in  greater  kindness  of  feeling  than  now,  nor  with  a  fuller  purpose 
to  sustain  you,  so  far  as,  in  my  most  anxious  judgment,  I  consistently 
can.  But  you  must  act. 

Yours,  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

The  President  yielded  to  McClellan,  and  sent  General 
Franklin  to  him,  with  his  division;  and  General  McClellan 
thanked  him  for  his  kindness  and  consideration,  adding,  "1 
now  understand  the  matter  which  I  did  not  before."  Cer 
tainly  his  misunderstanding  of  the  matter  had  not  been  the 
result  of  any  lack  of  effort  on  the  part  of  the  President  to 
make  him  understand  it.  Through  the  whole  month  in  which 
the  great  army  lay  before  Yorktown,  the  President  and  AVar 
Department  were  fed  with  dispatches  of  the  most  encouraging 
character.  General  McClellan  was  leaving  nothino-  undone 

O  O 

to  enable  him  to  attack  without  delay;  after  receiving  rein 
forcements,  he  was  "confident  of  results;"  he  was  soon  to  be 
"at  them;"  there  was  to  be  "not  a  moment's  unnecessary 
delay;"  he  was  "getting  up  the  heavy  guns,  mortars  and 
ammunition  quite  rapidly;"  there  were  heavy  rains,  and  hor 
rid  roads,  but  he  was  "making  progress  all  the  time."  He 
was  making  progress  in  the  concentration  of  troops,  certainly, 
for,  on  the  thirtieth  of  April,  he  had,  by  Adjutant-general 


368  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

Townsend's  report,  130,878  men,  of  whom  112,392  were  reck 
oned  effective.  At  this  time,  he  called  upon  the  department 
for  Parrott  guns;  and,  on  the  first  of  May,  the  President 
wrote  him:  "Your  call  for  Parrott  guns  from  Washington 
alarms  me — chiefly  because  it  argues  indefinite  procrastina 
tion.  Is  anything  to  be  done?" 

There  was  something  to  be  done,  but  the  enemy  did  it. 
After  the  absolute  waste  of  a  month's  time,  opportunities,  and 
resources  of  strength  and  material,  the  rebels  quietly  evacu 
ated,  their  position,  and  retired  up  the  Peninsula.  It  was  the 
old  story  of  great  preparations  to  fight,  and  no  fighting — no 
weakening  of  the  enemy.  General  McClellan  thought  the 
success  brilliant,  if  we  may  judge  by  his  dispatches.  It  was 
the  costly  victory  of  an  engineer.  He  telegraphed  to  Mr. 
Stanton,  on  the  fourth,  that  he  held  the  entire  line  of  the  en 
emy's  works;  that  he  had  thrown  all  his  cavalry  and  horse 
artillery,  supported  by  infantry,  in  pursuit ;  that  no  time  should 
be  lost,  and  that  he  should  "push  the  enemy  to  the  wall." 
The  enemy  retired  to  his  second  line  of  works  at  Williams- 
burgh  without  pushing,  and  took  his  position  behind  the  wall. 
Here  was  fought  the  battle  of  Williamsburgh,  which  McClel 
lan  designated  in  his  final  report  as  "  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
engagements  of  the  war."  He  bestows  the  highest  praise 
upon  General  Hancock,  though  Hooker  had  fought  with  equal 
gallantry,  and  encountered  greater  losses.  All  did  their  duty ; 
and  when,  between  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
General  McClellan  arrived  upon  the  ground  (the  battle  hav 
ing  commenced  early  in  the  morning,)  he  did  his  duty,  and 
helped  materially  toward  a  favorable  result  of  the  action. 
On  the  next  morning,  there  was  no  enemy ;  and,  owing  to  the 
bad  roads,  the  lack  of  food,  and  the  exhaustion  of  the  troops, 
there  could  be  no  immediate  pursuit. 

On  the  seventh  of  May,  General  Franklin  landed  at  West 
Point  with  his  division,  further  up  the  peninsula,  supported 
by  the  divisions  of  Sedgwick,  Porter  and  Richardson.  The 
rebels  were  obliged  to  attack,  to  give  the  retreating  columns 
from  Williamsburgh  time  and  opportunity  to  pass ;  but,  after 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  369 

a  battle  of  six  hours  they  were  repulsed,  though  not  until  they 
had  accomplished  their  object. 

General  McClellan  did  not  like  the  organization  of  the 
army  into  corps.  Tha  measure  did  not  originate  with  him, 
and  the  men  appointed  to  their  command  were  not  men  of  his 
choosing.  He  did  not  believe  in  fighting  the  battle  of  "\Vil- 
liamsburgh.  The  three  corps-commanders,  Sumner,  Heintzel- 
man  and  Keyes,  were  all  on  the  ground;  and  were  regarded 
by  the  commanding  General  as  indiscreet  in  commencing  the 

J  O  O 

attack,  and  incompetent  in  its  conduct. 

At  this  time,  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Stanton  and  Mr.  Chase 
were  all  on  a  visit  to  Fortress  Monroe ;  and,  on  the  ninth  of 
May,  General  McClellan  took  occasion  to  write  to  the  Secre 
tary  of  War,  asking  permission  to  re-organize  the  army  corps. 
He  wished  to  return  to  the  organization  by  divisions,  or  to  be 
authorized  to  relieve  incompetent  commanders  of  army  corps. 
To  give  force  to  his  request,  he  declared  in  his  note  that,  had 
he  been  half  an  hour  later  on  the  field,  the  army  would  have 
been  routed,  and  would  have  lost  everything.  He  declared 
that  he  found  on  the  field  "  the  utmost  confusion  and  incompe- 
tency,"  and  added  that  "at  least  a  thousand  lives  were  really 
sacrificed  by  the  organization  into  corps."  Mr.  Stanton  re 
plied  that  the  President,  who  would  write  him  privately, 
would  give  him  liberty  to  suspend  the  corps  organization 
temporarily,  or  until  further  orders.  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  pri 
vately,  and  wrote  a  very  frank  and  honest  letter,  dated  at  Fort 
ress  Monroe,  of  which  these  were  the  essential  paragraphs : 

"  I  have  just  assisted  the  Secretary  of  War  in  forming  the  part  of  a 
dispatch  to  you,  relating  to  army  corps,  "which  dispatch,  of  course,  will 
have  reached  you  long  before  this  will.  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  to 
you  privately  on  this  subject.  I  ordered  the  army  corps  organization 
not  only  op  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  twelve  Generals  of  division, 
but  also  on  the  unanimous  opinion  of  every  military  man  I  could  get  an 
opinion  from,  and  every  modern  military  book,  yourself  only  excepted. 
Of  course  I  did  not  on  my  own  judgment  pretend  to  understand  the 
subject.  I  now  think  it  indispensable  for  you  to  know  how  your  struggle 
against  it  is  received  in  quarters  which  we  cannot  entirely  disregard. 
It  is  looked  upon  as  merely  an  effort  to  pamper  one  or  two  pets,  and  to 
24 


370  LIFE   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

persecute  and  degrade  their  supposed  rivals.  I  have  had  no  word  from 
Sumner,  Heintzelman  and  Keyes.  The  commanders  of  these  corps  are 
of  course  the  three  highest  officers  with  you,  but  I  am  constantly  told 
that  you  have  no  consultation  or  communication  with  them,  that  you 
consult  and  communicate  with  nobody  but  Fitz  John  Porter,  and  per 
haps  General  Franklin.  I  clo  not  say  these  complaints  are  true  or  just; 
but,  at  all  events,  it  is  proper  you  should  know  of  their  existence.  Do 
the  commanders  of  corps  disobey  your  orders  in  anything  ? 

"Are  you  strong  enough,  even  with  my  help,  to  set  your  foot  upon 
the  neck  of  Sumner,  Heintzelman  and  Keyes,  all  at  once  ?  This  is  a 
practical  and  very  serious  question  to  you." 

After  the  receipt  of  this  private  letter,  General  McClellan 
concluded  not  to  make  the  change  which  seemed  so  essential ; 
but  he  created  two  new  corps,  or  "provisional  corps,"  which 
he  placed  respectively  under  the  command  of  Fitz  John  Porter 
and  General  Franklin,  the  men  whom  Mr.  Lincoln  had  men 
tioned  as  his  favorites. 

Leaving  the  army  to  make  its  way  toward  Eichmond,  events 
take  us  back  to  Fortress  Monroe  for  a  brief  space,  where  the 
Washington  dignitaries  were  consulting  and  watchin^  the 

O  O  O  £3 

progress  of  affairs.  Nothing  could  be  done  on  the  James 
River,  on  account  of  the  presence  of  the  formidable  Merrimac ; 
and,  in  the  meantime,  Norfolk  was  held  by  the  rebels.  It  was 
desirable  to  take  Norfolk ;  and  an  expedition  was  fitted  out  at 
Fortress  Monroe,  under  command  of  General  Wool,  for  that 
purpose.  To  show  how  this  was  done,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  illustrate  the  free  and  easy  manner  in  which  the  President 
dealt  with  his  officers,  we  shall  let  Mr.  Lincoln  tell  his  own  "  lit 
tle  story."  In  a  subsequent  conversation  with  Major  General 
Garfield,  he  said :  "  By  the  way,  Garfield,  do  you  know  that 
Chase,  Stanton,  General  Wool  and  I  had  a  campaign  of  our 
own?  We  went  down  to  Fortress  Monroe  in  Chase's  revenue 
cutter,  and  consulted  with  Admiral  Goldsborough  on  the  feas 
ibility  of  taking  Norfolk  by  landing  on  the  North  shore  and 
making  a  march  of  eight  miles.  The  Admiral  said  there  was 
no  landing  on  that  shore,  and  we  should  have  to  double  the 
cape,  and  approach  the  place  from  the  south  side,  which  would 
be  a  long  journey,  and  a  difficult  one.  I  asked  him  if  he  had 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  371 

ever  tried  to  find  a  landing,  and  he  replied  that  he  had  not. 
I  then  told  him  a  story  of  a  fellow  in  Illinois  who  had  studied 
law,  but  had  never  tried  a  case.  He  was  sued,  and,  not  hav 
ing  confidence  in  his  ability  to  manage  his  own  case,  employed 
a  lawyer  to  manage  it  for  him.  He  had  only  a  confused  idea 
of  the  meaning  of  law  terms,  but  was  anxious  to  make  a  dis 
play  of  learning,  and,  on  the  trial,  constantly  made  suggestions 
to  his  lawyer,  who  paid  but  little  attention  to  him.  At  last, 
fearing  that  his  lawyer  was  not  handling  the  opposing  coun 
sel  very  well,  he  lost  all  his  patience ;  and,  springing  to  his 
feet,  cried  out,  '  Why  don't  you  go  at  him  with  a  capias  or  a 
surre-butter  or  something,  and  not  stand  there  like  a  con 
founded  old  nudum-pactum ? '  'Now,  Admiral,'  said  I,  'if 
you  don't  know  that  there  is  no  landing  on  the  North  shore, 
I  want  you  to  find  out. ' ' 

Continuing  his  narrative,  Mr.  Lincoln  said :  "  The  Admiral 
took  the  hint ;  and,  taking  Chase  and  Wool  along,  with  a  com 
pany  or  two  of  marines,  he  went  on  a  voyage  of  discovery, 
and  Stanton  and  I  remained  at  Fortress  Monroe.  That  night 
we  went  to  bed,  but  not  to  sleep,  for  we  were  very  anxious 
for  the  fate  of  the  expedition.  About  two  o'clock  the  next 
morning,  I  heard  the  heavy  tread  of  Wool  ascending  the 
stairs.  I  went  out  into  the  parlor  and  found  Stanton  hugging 
Wool  in  the  most  enthusiastic  manner,  as  he  announced  that 
he  had  found  a  landing,  and  had  captured  Norfolk." 

Thus  Norfolk  came  into  our  possession  on  the  ninth  of  May ; 
and  on  the  eleventh  the  Merrimac  was  blown  up  by  command 
of  her  own  officers,  releasing  our  navy  from  its  long  durance, 
though  its  passage  up  the  James  was  repulsed  by  a  heavy 
battery  at  Drury's  Bluff. 

General  McClellan  was  still  busy  with  his  dispatches.  Of 
the  nature  of  these  dispatches,  we  can  judge  by  the  replies  of 
the  President.  Under  date  of  May  fifteenth,  the  latter  writes: 
"I  have  done  all  I  could,  and  can,  to  sustain  you.  I  hoped 
that  the  opening  of  James  River,  and  putting  Wool  and  Burn- 
side  in  communication  with  an  open  road  to  Richmond,  or  to 
you,  had  effected  something  in  that  direction."  For  five  days 


372  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM] LINCOLN: 

our  army  lay  at  Williamsburgh,  on  account  of  bad  roads, 
which  roads  the  rebel  army  found  it  convenient  to  pass  with 
sufficient  rapidity  to  place  themselves  within  the  outer  defenses 
of  Richmond,  a  distance  of  nearly  forty  miles,  it  They  were, 
at  least,  all  across  the  Chickahominy  River. 

Head-quarters  reached  White  House  on  the  sixteenth. 
Two  days  previously,  the  General  had  written  the  President 
that  he  could  bring  only  eighty  thousand  men  into  the  field, 
and  that  he  wanted  every  man  the  government  could  send 
him.  Mr.  Stanton  wrote  him  on  the  eighteenth  that  the 
President  was  unwilling  to  uncover  the  capital  entirely,  but 
desired  that  he  would  extend  his  rio-ht  wino*  to  the  north  of 

o  o 

Richmond,  so  that  McDowell  could  communicate  with  him 
by  his  left  wing.  "At  your  earnest  call  for  reinforcements," 
said  Mr  Stanton,  "he  is  sent  forward  to  co-operate  in  the  re 
duction  of  Richmond,  but  charged,  in  attempting  this,  not  to 
uncover  the  city  of  Washington."  General  McClellan  seemed 
to  have  no  idea  that  the  capital  was  in  danger,  and  replied  to 
this  that  he  wished  McDowell  to  join  him  by  water.  He 
feared  that  he  could  not  join  him  overland  in  season  for  the 
coming  battle,  and  complained  that  McDowell  was  not  put 
more  directly  under  his  command.  On  the  twenty-fourth  of 
May,  the  President  wrote,  saying  that  McDowell  and  Shields 
would  move  for  him  on  the  following  Monday,  Shields'  troops 
being  too  much  worn  to  march  earlier;  and  that  they  had  so 
weakened  their  line  already  that  Banks,  in  the  Shenandoah 
valley,  was  in  peril,  and  had  met  with  a  serious  loss.  On  the 
same  day,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  obliged,  in  order  to  save  the 
capital,  to  suspend  McDowell's  movement  toward  McClellan ; 
for  the  rebel  General  Jackson  had  begun  a  desperate  push  for 
Harper's  Ferry.  Against  this  action  of  the  President,  Mc 
Clellan  protested ;  and,  on  the  twenty-fifth,  the  former  wrote 
him  a  note,  giving  a  full  statement  of  the  situation: 

"Your  dispatch  received.  General  Banks  was  at  Strasburg  with 
about  six  thousand  men,  Shields  having  been  taken  from  him  to  swell 
a  column  for  McDowell  to  aid  you  at  Kichmond,  and  the  rest  of  his 
force  scattered  at  various  places.  On  the  twenty-third,  a  force  of  seven 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  373 

thousand  to  ten  thousand  fell  upon  one  regiment  and  two  companies 
guarding  the  bridge  at  Front  Royal,  destroying  it  entirely;  crossed  the 
Shenandoah,  and  on  the  twenty-fourth,  yesterday,  pushed  on  to  get 
north  of  Banks  on  the  road  to  Winchester  General  Banks  ran  a  race 
with  them,  beating  them  into  Winchester  yesterday  evening  This 
morning  a  battle  ensued  between  the  two  forces,  in  which  General 
Banks  was  beaten  back  into  full  retreat  toward  Martinsburg,  and  prob 
ably  is  broken  up  into  a  total  rout.  Geary,  on  the  Manassas  Gap 
Railroad,  just  now  reports  that  Jackson  is  now  near  Front  Royal  with 
ten  thousand  troops,  following  up  and  supporting,  as  I  understand,  the 
force  now  pursuing  Banks.  Also,  that  another  force  of  ten  thousand 
is  near  Orleans,  following  on  in  the  same  direction.  Stripped  bare,  as 
we  are  here,  I  will  do  all  we  can  to  prevent  them  crossing  the  Potomac 
at  Harper's  Ferry  or  above.  McDowell  has  about  twenty  thousand  of 
his  forces  moving  back  to  the  vicinity  of  Front  Royal;  and  Fremont,  who 
was  at  Franklin,  is  moving  to  Harrisonburg  both  these  movements  in 
tended  to  get  in  the  enemy's  rear. 

"  One  more  of  McDowell's  brigades  is  ordered  through  here  to  Har 
per's  Ferry ;  the  rest  of  his  forces  remain  for  the  present  at  Fredericks- 
burg.  We  are  sending  such  regiments  and  dribs  from  here  and  Balti 
more  as  we  can  spare  to  Harper's  Ferry,  supplying  their  places  in  some 
sort,  calling  in  militia  from  tjjie  adjacent  states.  We  also  have  eighteen 
cannon  on  the  road  to  Harper's  Ferry,  of  which  arm  there  is  not  one 
at  that  point.  This  is  now  our  situation. 

"  If  McDowell's  force  icas  now  beyond  our  reach,  ice  should  lie  entirely 
helpless.  Apprehension  of  something  like  this,  and  no  unwillingness  to  sus 
tain  you,  has  always  been  my  reason  for  withholding  McDowell's  forces  from 
you. 

"Please  understand  this,  and  do  the  best  you  can  with  the  forces  you 
have." 

A  few  hours  after  this  dispatch  was  sent,  the  President  sent 
another,  stating  that  the  enemy  was  driving  General  Banks 
before  him,  and  was  threatening  Leesburgh  and  Geary  on  the 
Manassas  Gap  Eailroad ;  that  the  movement  looked  like  a  gen 
eral  and  concerted  one — such  an  one  as  he  would  not  make 
if  he  were  acting  on  the  purpose  of  a  very  desperate  defense 
of  Richmond ;  and  that,  if  McClellan  did  not  at  once  attack 
that  capital,  he  would  probably  have  to  give  up  the  job,  and 
come  to  the  defense  of  Washington. 

o 

This  dispatch  moved  the  General.  General  Fitz  John 
Porter  was  sent  to  attack  a  rebel  force  near  Hanover  Court- 


374  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

House,  which  he  did  with  favorable  results.  General  Mc- 
Clellan  described  it  as  a  perfect  rout  of  the  enemy,  at  which 
the  President  wrote  a  dispatch,  stating  his  gratification,  but 
expressing  his  surprise  that  the  Richmond  and  Fredericksburg 
Railroad  was  not  seized  again.  On  the  twenty-sixth,  Mr. 
Lincoln  informed  General  McClellan  that  Banks  was  safe  at 
Williamsport.  Still  the  General  wanted  troops  sent  to  him 
by  water,  still  he  wanted  more  troops,  and  still  the  President 
assured  him,  again  and  again,  that  he  was  doing  and  would 
do  for  him  everything  he  could  do,  consistently  with  the 
safety  of  Washington. 

A  movement  was  commenced  on  the  twenty-fifth  to  cross 
the  Chickahominy ;  and,  on  the  thirtieth  and  thirty-first,  a 
battle  was  fought,  which  resulted  in  such  a  repulse  of  the 
rebels,  and  such  heavy  losses  to  them  as  greatly  to  alarm  Rich 
mond,  and  impress  upon  the  city  the  belief  that  an  immediate 
and  fatal  pursuit  would  be  made  by  the  federal  forces.  After 
the  engagement,  General  McClellan  crossed  the  river,  but 
found  the  roads  so  bad  that  artillery  could  not  be  handled,  and 
that  pursuit  was  impossible ;  although  the  rebels  had  found  it 
convenient  to  get  back,  and  expected  to  be  pursued.  The 
following  day,  General  Heintzelman  sent  a  reconnoitering 
party  within  four  miles  of  Richmond,  without  finding  an  ene 
my.  Informed  of  this,  General  McClellan  ordered  the  force 
to  fall  back  to  its  old  position :  and  on  the  same  day  wrote  to 
Washington  that  he  only  waited  for  the  river  to  fall,  to  cross 
over  the  rest  of  his  army,  and  make  a  general  attack ;  and 
that  the  morale  of  his  army  was  such  that  he  could  venture 
much,  not  fearing  the  odds  against  him. 

McClellan  had  met  great  losses  by  battle  and  disease ;  and 
the  government  did  what  it  could  for  him,  by  placing  under 
his  command  the  troops  at  Fortress  Monroe,  and  by  sending 
to  him  McCall's  division  of  McDowell's  corps.  On  the 
seventh  of  June,  the  General  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
that  he  should  be  ready  to  move  as  soon  as  McCall  should 
reach  him,  and  McCall  reached  him  on  the  tenth.  On  that 
day,  he  had  caught  a  rumor  that  Beauregard  had  reinforced 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  375 

the  rebels  in  Richmond ;  and  then  he  wanted  some  of  Halleck's 
army  in  Tennessee  sent  to  him.  The  Secretary  assured  him 
that  Beauregard  and  his  army  were  not  in  Richmond,  but  that 
Halleck  would  be  urged  to  comply  with  the  request,  so  far  as 
he  could  do  GO  with  safety.  The  particular  friends  of  Mc- 
Clellan  were  busy  at  this  time  with  suspicions  and  reports 
that  the  President  and  Secretary  of  War  were  trying  to  sac 
rifice  him ;  and,  to  put  an  extinguisher  on  this,  Mr.  Stanton 
wrote:  "Be  assured,  General,  that  there  never  has  been  a 
moment  when  my  desire  has  been  otherwise  than  to  aid  you 
with  my  whole  heart,  mind  and  strength,  since  the  hour  we 
first  met ;  and,  whatever  others  may  say,  for  their  own  pur 
poses,  you  have  never  had,  and  never  can  have,  any  one/more 
truly  your  friend,  or  more  anxious  to  support  you,  or  more 
joyful  than  I  shall  be  at  the  success  which  I  have  no  doubt 
will  soon  be  achieved  by  your  arms." 

With  a  long  series  of  dispatches  in  which  General  McClel- 
lan  quarrels  with  the  relations  which  General  McDowell's 
troops  held  to  his  command,  it  is  not  necessary  to  burden 
these  pages.  The  President  wished  to  hold  on  to  McDowell's 
troops,  and  still  have  them,  assist  McClellan.  lie  had  sent 
McCall's  division  by  water ;  but  these  were  directed  to  be 
posted  so  that  they  could  unite  with  the  corps  coming  by 
land,  and  to  be  kept  under  McDowell.  McClellan  saw  in 
this  arrangement  only  ambition  on  the  part  of  McDowell ;  and, 
in  one  of  his  dispatches,  wrote  the  government :  "  If  I  cannot 
fully  control  all  his  troops,  I  want  none  of  them,  but  would 
prefer  to  fight  the  battle  with  what  I  have,  and  let  others'be 
responsible  for  the  results,"  which  was  equivalent  to  saying 
that  he  would  rather  be  whipped  without  McDowell's  troops, 
under  the  circumstances,  than  be  victorious  with  them. 

On  the  twenty-first,  the  General  sent  a  dispatch  to  the  Pres 
ident,  saying  that  ten  thousand  men  had  been  sent  from  Rich 
mond  to  reinforce  Jackson.  Mr.  Lincoln  informed  him  of  the 
confirmation  of  the  news,  and  told  him  that  it  was  as  good  to 
him  as  a  reinforcement  of  an  equal  number. 

Thus  the  time  passed  away,  while  his  army  was  wasting 


376  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

with  disease  in  the  Chickahominy  swamps,  and  he,  with  every 
fresh  dispatch,  was  just  "  about  to  move."  He  had  lain  there  a 
mo^ith ;  and  the  rebels  thought  it  was  time  for  him  to  move  in 
the  other  direction.  He  saw  the  preparations,  and,  anticipa 
ting  a  defeat,  he  wrote  to  inform  the  government  that  the  rebel 
force  before  him  was  two  hundred  thousand  strong,  and  that, 
in  case  of  a  disaster,  the  responsibility  could  not  be  thrown 
on  his  shoulders.  This  kind  of  talk  troubled  Mr.  Lincoln. 
"I  give  you  all  I  can,"  said  he,  "and  act  on  the  presumption 
that  you  will  do  the  best  you  can  with  what  you  have;  while 
you  continue,  ungenerously,  I  think,  to  assume  that  I  could 
give  you  more  if  I  would."  At  this  very  moment,  as  it  ap 
pears  by  McClellan's  report,  he  had  ordered  supplies  to  a 
point  on  the  James  River,  to  which  he  expected  to  retreat. 
On  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-sixth,  the  extreme  right  of 
the  army  was  attacked ;  and,  from  that  time  until  the  army  had 
wheeled  back  to  the  James  River,  there  was  no  rest.  They 
fell  back,  fighting  every  day,  inflicting  terrible  losses  on  the 
enemy,  and  receiving  sad  punishment  themselves.  The  Gen 
eral's  pen  was  busy  still,  as  it  might  be,  for  he  took  no  part 
in  the  engagements.  If  he  had  ten  thousand  fresh  troops,  he 
could  take  Richmond,  he  thought ;  but,  as  it  was,  he  could  only 
cover  his  retreat.  He  was  not  responsible  for  the  result ;  he 
must  have  more  troops.  "If  I  save  this  army  now,"  said  he 
to  the  Secretary  of  War,  "I  tell  you  plainly  that  I  owe  no 
thanks  to  you,  or  to  any  persons  in  Washington ;  you  have 
done  your  best  to  sacrifice  this  army."  Was  ever  such  petu 
lance,  such  insolence,  borne  with  such  patience  before?  The 
President  wrote  him:  " Save  your  army  at  all  events."  The 
President  would  not  blame  him.  "We  protected  Washing 
ton,"  said  he,  "  and  the  enemy  concentrated  on  you.  Had  we 
stripped  Washington,  he  would  have  been  upon  us  before  the 
troops  sent  could  have  got  to  you.  Less  than  a  week  ago, 
you  notified  us  that  reinforcements  were  leaving  Richmond  to 
come  in  front  of  us.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  neither 
you  nor  the  government  is  to  blame."  General  McClellan 
called  upon  the  President  for  a  reinforcement  of  fifty  thousand 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  377 

troops,  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  replied:  "When  you  ask  for 
fifty  thousand  men  to  be  promptly  sent  to  you,  you  surely  la 
bor  under-  some  gross  mistake  of  fact.  Recently,  you  sent 
papers  showing  your  disposal  of  forces  made  last  spring,  for 
the  defense  of  Washington,  and  advising  a  return  to  that 
plan.  I  find  it  included,  in  and  about  Washington,  seventy- 
five  thousand  men.*  Xow,  please  be  assured  that  I  have  not 
men  enough  to  fill  that  very  plan  by  fifteen  thousand."  Fur 
ther  on  Jie  says:  "I  have  not,  outside  of  your  army,  seventy- 
five  thousand  men-  east  of  the  mountains.  Thus  the  idea  of 
sending  you  fifty  thousand  men,  or  any  other  considerable 
forces  promptly,  is  simply  absurd."  He  closed  by  assuring 
him  that  he  did  not  blame  him  for  his  disasters,  asking 
that  he  would  be  equally  generous  toward  the  government, 
and  adjuring  him  to  save  his  army.  It  was  absolutely  impos 
sible  for  the  government  to  send  reinforcements  at  once,  to 
enable  McClellan  to  assume  the  offensive.  On  the  seventh  of 
July,  the  General,  who  seems  to  have  had  a  penchant  for 
giving  general  advice  to  the  government,  found  time  to  write 
a  long  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  telling  him  that  he  thought  the 
war  should  not  look  to  the  "subjugation  of  the  people  of  any 
state,  in  any  event."  He  would  have  no  political  execution 
of  persons,  no  .confiscation,  and  no  forcible  abolition  of  slav 
ery  ;  though  it  appears  that  he  did  not  object  to  the  practi 
cal  abolition  of  slavery  upon  military  necessity,  and  by  mili 
tary  means.  "  A  declaration  of  radical  views,  especially  upon 
slavery,  will  rapidly  disintegrate  our  present  armies,"  said  the 
General :  but  he  did  not  seem  to  produce  a  profound  impres 
sion  upon  the  mind  of  the  Executive. 

The  President  determined  to  ascertain,  by  personal  inspec 
tion,  the  condition  of  the  army ;  and,  on  the  eighth,  visited 
General  McClellan  at  Harrison's  Landing.  At  this  time  it 
was  understood  that  the  enemy  was  organizing  his  forces  for 
an  advance  on  Washington.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  and  of  the  corps  commanders,  that  the  army  should  re 
pair  to  Washington,  but  General  McClellan  was  against  it. 
The  army,  he  declared,  ought  not  to  be  withdrawn.  It  ought 


378  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

to  be  promptly  reinforced,  and  thrown  again  upon  Richmond. 
He  wanted  the  whole  of  General  Burnside's  command  in 
North  Carolina  to  help  him.  He  dreaded  the  effects  of  a  re 
treat  upon  the  morale  of  his  army,  although  he  had  just  tried 
it,  and  declared,  in  a  dispatch  of  the  eleventh,  that  the  army 
was  in  "  fine  spirits." 

On  the  thirteenth,  the  President  wrote  him  that  one  hund 
red  and  sixty  thousand  men  had  gone  with  his  army  to  the 
Peninsula,  and  that,  when  he  was  with  him,  a  few  days  be 
fore,  he  was  informed  that  only  eighty-six  thousand  remained, 
leaving  seventy-three  thousand  five  hundred  to  be  accounted 
for.  After  making  all  allowances  for  deaths,  wounds  and 
sickness,  fifty  thousand  men  were  still  absent.  General  Mc- 
Clellan  replied  that  38,250  men  were  absent  by  authority. 
Here  was  a  reinforcement  at  command  worth  having.  Why 
did  the  General  let  them  go?  Why  did  he  not  call  them 
back? 

It  was  determined  at  last  to  withdraw  the  army  from  the 
Peninsula,  and  the  order  found  McClellan  still  protesting. 
"The  true  defense  of  Washington"  was  just  where  he  was. 
He  received  the  order  to  remove  his  sick  on  the  second  of 
August ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  twenty-third  that  General 
Franklin's  corps  started  from  Fortress  Monroe,  and  not  until 
the  twenty-sixth  that  McClellan  himself  arrived  at  Alexan 
dria.  On  the  following  day,  he  was  ordered  to  take  the  en 
tire  direction  of  the  forwarding  of  the  troops  from  Alexandria 
to  assist  General  Pope,  who,  two  months  before,  had  taken  the 
consolidated  commands  of  McDowell  and  Fremont,  the  latter 
retiring  at  his  own  request,  and  being  replaced  by  Sigel. 
That  portion  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  which  arrived  be 
fore  McClellan,  pushed  off  at  once  to  reinforce  Pope ;  but  not 
a  man  that  came  afterwards  took  any  part  in  those  battles  by 
which  that  General  was  driven  back  upon  Washington.  The 
dispatches  by  which  he  was  urged,  ordered,  almost  besought, 
to  forward  troops  to  the  assistance  of  Pope,  would  fill  several 
pages  of  this  volume ;  and,  when  we  know  how  promptly  troops 
went  forward  before  his  arrival,  it  is  impossible  to  find  in  his 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  379 

miserable  excuses  for  inaction  anything  but  a  disposition  to 
embarrass  Pope,  and  deprive  him  of  success.  It  is  a  hard  judg 
ment,  and  a  sad  one  to  render ;  but  it  must  be  rendered,  or 
the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  the  General  was  either  in 
competent  to  comprehend  the  emergency  or  afraid  to  meet  it. 
It  is  impossible  to  find  an  apology  for  his  failure  to  act  in  this 
great  necessity,  that  would  not  damage  his  reputation  as  a 
military  man. 

The  triumphant  rebels  moved  up  the  Potomac  with  the  ev 
ident  intention  of  crossing  and  invading  Maryland.  No  time 
was  to  be  lost.  Under  the  representation  that  the  army  of 
the  Potomac  would  serve  under  no  commander  but  Mc- 
Clellan,  General  Pope  was  relieved,  and  the  former  placed  in 
command  of  all  the  troops.  On  the  fourth  of  September,  he 
commenced  moving  into  Maryland  for  the  purpose  of  expelling 
the  rebel  forces.  Washington  was  in  a  panic,  and  the  whole 
country  was  in  a  condition  of  the  most  feverish  excitement. 
Still  he  called  for  reinforcements.  He  wanted  to  uncover 
"Washington  again,  and  said  that,  "even  if  Washington  should 
be  taken,"  it  "would  not  bear  comparison  with  the  ruin  and 
disaster  that  would  follow  a  single  defeat  of  this  army." 
When  that  same  army  was  fighting  under  Pope,  it  did  not, 
apparently,  impress  him  in  that  way  at  all. 

The  battle  of  South  Mountain  was  fought  on  the  fourteenth, 
and,  on  the  seventeenth,  the  battle  of  Antietam.  The  rebels 
were  whipped,  and  recrossed  the  Potomac,  broken  and  dis 
heartened.  General  McClellan  did  not  pursue,  owing  to  the 
condition  of  his  army,  one  whole  corps  of  which  (Fitz  John 
Porter's)  had  not  been  in  the  action  at  all ;  and,  as  if  the  habit 
of  calling  for  reinforcements  had  become  chronic,  renewed  his 
application  for  more  troops.  There  he  remained,  with  no 
effort  to  follow  up  his  victory.  The  President  was  impatient, 
but,  to  be  sure  that  he  did  no  injustice  to  the  General,  he  vis 
ited  the  army  in  person,  to  ascertain  what  its  real  condition 
was.  The  result  was  an  order,  issued  on  the  sixth,  for  the 
army  to  move  across  the  Potomac,  and  give  battle  to  the  en 
emy,  or  drive  him  south.  The  President  promised  him  thirty 


880  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

thousand  new  men,  if  he  would  move  across  the  river  between 
the  enemy  and  Washington.  If  he  would  prefer  to  move  up 
the  Shenandoah  valley,  he  could  only  spare  him  fifteeen  thou 
sand.  Then  General  McClellan  began  to  make  inquiries,  and 
call  for  shoes  and  other  supplies ;  but  he  did  not  begin  to  move. 
A  few  clays  afterward,  the  rebel  General  Stuart  made  a  raid 
into  Pennsylvania,  with  a  large  cavalry  force,  keeping  General 
McClellan  busy,  and  calling  forth  from  him  the  confident  state 
ment  that  the  daring  raiders  would  be  bagged ;  but  they  went 
completely  around  the  army,  and  escaped  in  safety.  A  note 
written  to  the  General  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  thirteenth,  so  well 
illustrates  the  situation  at  the  moment,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
betrays  so  fully  his  knowledge  of  affairs  and  the  intelligence  of 
his  military  criticisms,  that  it  must  be  given  entire : 

"My  Dear  Sir — You  remember  my  speaking  to  you  of  what  I  called 
your  over-cautiousness.  Are  you  not  over-cautious  when  you  assume 
that  you  can  not  do  what  the  enemy  is  constantly  doing?  Should  you 
Mot  claim  to  be  at  least  his  equal  in  prowess,  and  act  upon  the  claim  ? 

"As  I  understand,  you  telegraphed  General  Ilalleck  that  you  can  not 
subsist  your  army  at  Winchester,  unless  the  railroad  from  Harper's 
Ferry  to  that  point  be  put  in  working  order.  But  the  enemy  does  now 
subsist  his  army  at  Winchester,  at  a  distance  nearly  twice  as  great  from 
railroad  transportation  as  you  would  have  to  do,  without  the  railroad 
last  named.  He  now  wagons  from  Culpepper  Court-House,  which  is 
just  about  twice  as  far  as  you  would  have  to  do  from  Harper's  Ferry.  He 
is  certainly  not  more  than  half  as  well  provided  with  wagons  as  you 
are.  I  certainly  should  be  pleased  for  you  to  have  the  advantage  of 
the  railroad  from  Harper's  Ferry  to  Winchester ;  but  it  wastes  all  the 
remainder  of  autumn  to  give  it  to  you,  and,  in  fact,  ignores  the  question 
of  time,  which  can  not  and  must  not  be  ignored. 

"Again,  one  of  the  standard  maxims  of  war,  as  you  know,  is,  "to 
operate  upon  the  enemy's  communications  as  much  as  possible  without 
exposing  your  own."  You  seem  to  act  as  if  this  applies  against  you, 
but  can  not  apply  in  your/aror.  Change  positions  with  the  enemy,  and 
think  you  not  he  would  break  your  communication  with  Richmond 
within  the  next  twenty-four  hours?  You  dread  his  going  into  Pennsyl 
vania.  But,  if  he  does  so  in  full  force,  he  gives  up  his  communications 
to  you  absolutely,  and  you  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  follow  and  ruin 
him;  if  he  does  so  with  less  than  full  force,  fall  upon  and  beat  what  is 
left  behind  all  the  easier. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  381 

"  Exclusive  of  the  water  line,  you  are  now  nearer  Richmond  than  the 
enemy  is  by  the  route  that  you  can  and  he  must  take.  Why  can  you 
not  reach  there  before  him,  unless  you  admit  that  he  is  more  than  your 
equal  on  a  march  ?  His  route  is  the  arc  of  a  circle,  while  yours  is  the 
chord.  The  roads  are  as  good  on  yours  as  on  his. 

"  You  know  I  desired,  but  did  not  order  you,  to  cross  the  Potomac 
below,  instead  of  above,  the  Shenandoah  and  Blue  Ridge.  My  idea  was, 
that  this  would  at  once  menace  the  enemy's  communications,  which  I 
would  seize  if  he  would  permit.  If  he  should  move  northward,  I  would 
follow  him  closely,  holding  his  communications.  If  he  should  prevent 
our  seizing  his  communications,  and  move  toward  Richmond,  I  would 
press  closely  to  him,  fight  him  if  a  favorable  opportunity  should  pre 
sent,  and  at  least  try  to  beat  him  to  Richmond  on  the  inside  track.  I 
say  'try;'  if  we  never  try,  we  shall  never  succeed.  If  he  make  a  stand 
at  Winchester,  moving  neither  north  nor  south,  I  would  fight  him  there, 
on  the  idea  that,  if  we  cannot  beat  him  when  he  bears  the  wastage  of 
coming  to  us,  we  never  can  when  we  bear  the  wastage  of  going  to  him. 
This  proposition  is  a  simple  truth,  and  is  too  important  to  be  lost  sight 
of  for  a  moment.  In  coming  to  us,  he  tenders  us  an  advantage  which 
we  should  not  waive.  We  should  not  so  operate  as  to  merely  drive 
him  away.  As  we  must  beat  him  somewhere,  or  fail  finally,  we  can  do 
it,  if  at  all,  easier  near  to  us  than  far  away.  If  we  cannot  beat  the 
enemy  where  he  now  is,  we  never  can,  he  again  being  within  the  in- 
trenchments  of  Richmond.  Recurring  to  the  idea  of  going  to  Rich 
mond  on  the  inside  track,  the  facility  of  supplying  from  the  side  away 
from  the  enemy  is  remarkable ;  as  it  were,  by  the  different  spokes  of  a 
wheel,  extending  from  the  hub  toward  the  rim; — and  this  whether  you 
move  directly  by  the  chord,  or  on  the  inside  arc,  hugging  the  Blue 
Ridge  more  closely.  The  chord-line,  as  you  see,  carries  you  by  Aldie, 
Haymarket,  and  Fredericksburg ,  and  you  see  how  turnpikes,  railroads, 
and  finally  the  Potomac  by  Acquia  Creek,  meet  you  at  all  points  from 
Washington.  The  same,  only  the  lines  lengthened  a  little,  if  you  press 
closer  to  the  Blue  Hidge  part  of  the  way.  The  gaps  through  the  Blue 
Ridge  I  understand  to  be  about  the  following  distances  from  Harper's 
Ferry,  to  wit:  Vestal's,  five  miles;  Gregory's,  thirteen;  Snicker's, 
eighteen;  Ashby's,  twenty-eight;  Manassas,  thirty-eight;  Chester, 
forty-five  ;  and  Thornton's,  fifty-three.  I  should  think  it  preferable  to 
take  the  route  nearest  the  enemy,  disabling  him  to  make  an  important 
move  without  your  knowledge,  and  compelling  him  to  keep  his  forces 
together  for  dread  of  you.  The  gaps  would  enable  you  to  attack  if  you 
should  wish.  For  a  great  part  of  th»  way  you  would  be  practically  be 
tween  the  enemy  and  both  Washington  and  Richmond,  enabling  us  to 
spare  you  the  greatest  number  of  troops  from  here.  When,  at  length, 
running  to  Richmond  ahead  of  him  enables  him  to  move  this  way,  if  he 


382  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

does  so,  turn  and  attack  him  in  the  rear.  But  I  think  he  should  be  en 
gaged  long  before  such  point  is  reached.  It  is  all  easy  if  our  troops 
march  as  well  as  the  enemy,  and  it  is  unmanly  to  say  they  cannot  do  it; 
This  letter  is  in  no  sense  an  order." 

Still  the  government  urged  the  General  forward,  and  still 
he  had  excuses  for  not  going  forward.  His  horses  were  fa 
tigued,  and  had  the  sore  tongue,  he  said;  and  the  President 
could  not  forbear  asking  him  what  his  horses  had  done  since 
Antietam  that  would  fatigue  anything.  The  General  did  not 
like  what  the  President  said  about  his  cavalry,  and  called 
out  another  note  from  Mr.  Lincoln,  who,  under  date  of  Oc 
tober  twenty-sixth,  wrote  him  that  if  he  had  done  any  in 
justice  he  deeply  regretted  it.  He  added:  "To  be  told,  after 
five  weeks'  total  inactivity  of  the  army,  and  during  which 
period  we  had  sent  to  that  army  every  fresh  horse  we  possibly 
could,  amounting  in  the  whole  to  7,918,  that  the  cavalry 
horses  were  too  much  fatigued  to  move,  presented  a  very 
cheerless,  almost  hopeless  prospect  for  the  future."  On  the 
fifth  of  November,  the  army  had  crossed — -just  a  month  after 
the  order  to  cross  was  given ; — and,  of  course,  the  rebels  had 
made  all  the  needful  preparations,  either  for  battle  or  retreat. 

But  patience  at  Washington,  tried  long,  and  terribly  tried, 
had  become  exhausted;  and,  on  the  same  day  on  which  the 
General  announced  the  army  all  across  the  Potomac,  an  order 
arrived  relieving  him  of  his  command. 

Military  men  will  judge  this  remarkable  campaign  in  the 
light  of  their  own  science ;  but  the  civilian  will  read  its  his 
tory  by  the  light  of  its  results,  and  by  the  light  of  those  later 
magnificent  operations  of  Thomas  in  Tennessee, — of  Sheridan 
in  the  Shenandoah  valley  and  near  Richmond, — of  Sherman's 
march  from  Chattanooga  through  the  heart  of  the  rebellion 
and  up  the  Atlantic  coast,  writh  cities  falling  before  and  on 
either  side  of  him  as  if  swept  by  a  tornado, — and  of  Grant  be 
fore  Yicksburg,  or  in  the  Wilderness  and  at  Richmond,  cap 
turing  whole  armies,  and  finishing  up  a  war  so  weakly  begun. 
In  the  light  of  these  operations,  the  campaign  of  McClellan 
looks  like  the  work  of  a  boy  or  the  play  of  a  man. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  383 

With  General  McClellan's  motives,  the  writer  has  no  desire 
to  deal.  That  he  became  the  favorite  of  men  whose  heart 
was  not  in  the  war,  may  well  be  considered  his  misfortune. 
That  he  became  the  representative  of  the  party  opposed  to 
the  administration  in  its  general  policy,  on  all  subjects,  was 
not  inconsistent  with  his  desire  aril  determination  to  do  his 
whole  military  duty.  That  he  entertained  and  acted  upon  the 
determination  to  injure  the  administration  for  political  pur 
poses,  there  is  very  little  evidence ;  and  there  is  absolutely  no 
evidence  that  the  administration,  through  any  jealousy  of  him, 
withheld  its  support  from  him,  that  he  might  be  ruined  and 
put  out  of  its  way.  Such  a  supposition  cannot  live  a  moment 
in  the  light  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  life.  If  there  is  one  fact  in 
McClellan's  campaign  that  stands  out  with  peculiar  promi 
nence,  it  is  that  both  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Stanton  sent  him 
every  man  they  could  spare,  consistently  with  the  safety  of 
the  capital,  by  the  General's  own  showing  at  first,  and  by  the 
showing  of  events  at  last.  On  one  side,  we  see  the  presump 
tuous  volunteering  of  general  political  and  military  advice, 
the  unreasonable  call  for  reinforcements  when  assured  a^ain 

C5 

and  again  that  he  had  every  jnan  that  could  be  given  him, 
expostulations  against  government  orders,  quarreling  with 
government  arrangements,  absolute  criminations  of  the  gov 
ernment,  unaccountable  hesitations  and  boyish  inefficiency; 
while,  on  the  other,  there  were  almost  unbroken  respectfulness, 
patience  and  toleration,  ardent  desire  for  the  best  results,  con 
stant  urgency  to  action,  constant  sacrifice  of  personal  feeling 
and  opinion,  and  a  patent  wish  to  do  everything  practicable 
or  possible  to  give  the  commanding  General  everything  he 
wanted. 

That  General  McClcllan  loved  power,  is  evident ;  and  it  is 
just  as  evident  that  it  was  not  pleasant  to  him  to  share  it  with 
any  one ;  but,  on  the  whole,  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  was  not 
a  good,  well-meaning,  and  patriotic  man.  The  difficulty  was 
that  he  was  great  mainly  in  his  infirmities.  He  was  not  a 
great  man,  nor  a  great  general.  He  was  a  good  organizer  of 
military  force,  and  a  good  engineer ;  he  was  a  good  theorizer, 


884  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

and  wrote  good  English ;  he  had  that  quality  of  personal  mag 
netism  which  drew  the  hearts  of  his  soldiers  to  him ;  but  he 
was  not  a  man  of  action,  of  expedients,  of  quick  judgment, 
of  dash  and  daring,  of  great,  heroic  deeds.  He  was  never 
ready.  There  were  many  evidences  that  he  held  a  theory  of 
his  own  as  to  the  mode  of  conducting  the  war,  and  that,  in 
dependently  of  the  government,  he  endeavored  to  pursue  it; 
but,  even  if  he  did,  his  failure  must  always  be  regarded  as 
mainly  due  to  constitutional  peculiarities  for  which  he  was  not 
responsible. 

This  chapter  should  be  concluded  here,  but  space  must  be 
taken  for  a  very  brief  record  of  the  immediately  suc9eeding 
fortunes  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  and  a  hurried  chronicle 
of  the  other  military  events  of  the  year.  On  the  retirement 
of  General  McClellan,  General  Burnside  was  placed  in  com 
mand  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the 
rebel  army  commenced  falling  back  upon  Eichmond.  On  the 
fourteenth,  the  army  left  its  camps,  and  marched  for  Freder- 
icksburg,  arriving  there  at  about  the  same  time  with  the  rebel 
army.  Burnside  was  obliged  to  wait  for  his  pontoons,  and 
is  was  not  until  the  twelfth  of  December  that  he  was  ready  to 
cross.  Only  a  feeble  resistance  was  made  to  his  passage,  but 
it  was  a  worse  than  fruitless  procedure.  The  attempt  to 
carry  the  hills  was  a  failure,  and  he  was  obliged  to  withdraw 
his  army,  with  a  loss  of  from  ten  thousand  to  twelve  thousand 
men.  This  gave  a  sad  finishing  up  to  the  year's  sad  business, 
with  this  ill-starred  army. 

The  opening  of  the  campaign  of  1862  found  the  govern 
ment  with  a  newly  created  navy  at  its  command.  Mr.  Welles, 
though  reputed  inefficient,  had  accomplished  what  no  other 
man  had  ever  done  in  an  equal  space  of  time.  Not  only  were 
the  southern  ports  efficiently  blockaded,  but  materials  for  for 
midable  naval  expeditions  were  prepared.  General  Burnside, 
at  the  head  of  an  expedition,  captured  Roanoke  Island  on  the 
eighth  of  February,  with  three  thousand  prisoners ;  and  sub 
sequently  engaged  in  other  successful  movements  on  the  coast 
and  up  the  rivers  of  North  Carolina.  On  the  nineteenth  of 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  385 

June,  Charleston  was  attacked,  without  success.  In  the  lat 
ter  part  of  April,  Forts  Jackson  and  St.  Philip,  below  New 
Orleans,  were  assailed  by  the  fleet  under  Commodore  Farra- 
gut,  and  so  far  disalbed  that  they  were  passed.  As  a  conse 
quence,  New  Orleans  fell  into  our  hands,  all  the  rebel  troops 
fleeing  the  city.  This  affair  was  equally  brilliant  in  its  exe 
cution  and  important  in  its  results,  and  encouraged  the  gov 
ernment  as  much  as  it  distressed  and  discouraged  its  foes. 
Fort  Pulaski,  guarding  the  entrance  to  Savannah,  was  also 
taken,  and  that  port  effectually  shut  up. 

While  these  much  desired,  though  hardly  expected,  suc 
cesses  attended  the  operations  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
events  of  equal  importance  were  in  progress  on  its  tributaries. 
At  the  West  movements  were  on  a  gigantic  scale.  The  capture 
of  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  on  the  Cumberland  River  drew 
the  enemy  out  of  Bowling  Green  and  Nashville,  and  gave  us 
Columbus.  General  Price  was  driven  out  of  Missouri.  Isl 
and  Number  Ten  and  Forts  Pillow  and  Randolph  all  fell  into 
our  hands,  and  then  our  forces  occupied  Memphis.  A  com 
bination  of  all  the  rebel  armies  at  Corinth  surprised  our  troops 
at  Pittsburg  Landing,  under  General  Grant,  on  the  morning 
of  April  sixth,  with  overwhelming  numbers,  and  drove  them 
back  to  the  protection  of  our  gunboats ;  but  on  the  following 
day,  through  the  opportune  arrival  of  General  Buell,  with  his 
forces,  the  rebels  were  pushed  back  into  retreat,  with  terrible 
losses,  leaving  our  victorious  army  almost  as  badly  punished 
as  themselves.  The  victory  was  so  decided  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  moved  to  issue  a  Proclamation  of  Thanksgiving,  in  which 
he  also  recognized  the  other  victories  that  have  been  chron 
icled.  The  people  were  called  upon  to  "render  thanks  to  our 
Heavenly  Father  for  these  inestimable  blessings,"  and  were 
also  desired  to  "  implore  spiritual  consolation  in  behalf  of  all 
those  who  have  been  brought  into  affliction  by  the  casualties 
and  calamities  of  civil  war." 

The  rebels  fell  back  to  Corinth,  and,  remaining  there  a  few 
days,  retired  to  Grenada.  A  powerful  effort  of  General  Bragg 
to  invade  Kentucky,  made  later  in  the  season,  for  the  purpose 
25 


386  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

mainly  of  gathering  reinforcements,  encouraging  the  secession 
spirit,  and  collecting  supplies,  was  a  failure,  in  nearly  every 
point;  and,  after  a  battle  at  Terry ville,  he  retreated.  General 
Rosecrans  was  attacked  at  Corinth  by  a  powerful  confederate 
force,  but  he  repulsed  the  rebels  with  great  loss.  At  the  very 
last  of  the  year,  there  was  a  severe  fight  at  Murfreesboro 
which  resulted  favorably  to  our  arms ;  and  the  new  year  of 
1863  found  a  great  advance  made  toward  the  entire  redemp 
tion  of  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  Missouri,  from  the  presence 
of  rebel  armies  and  the  prevalence  of  rebel  influence. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

WHILE  these  operations,  pursued  upon  a  most  gigantic 
scale,  for  crushing  the  rebellion  and  defending  the  national 
existence  were  in  progress,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  taking  every  op 
portunity,  personally  and  through  his  generals,  to  assure  the 
people  of  the  South  that  he  meant  them  no  ill.  No  father 
ever  dealt  more  considerately  and  carefully  with  erring  chil 
dren  than  he  did  with  those  who  had  determined  to  break  up 
the  government.  On  the  twenty-fifth  of  July,  he  issued  a 
proclamation,  in  pursuance  of  a  section  in  the  confiscation  act, 
passed  by  Congress  a  few  days  previously,  warning  all  persons 
to  cease  participating  in  the  rebellion,  and  adjuring  them  to 
return  to  their  allegiance  to  the  government,  on  pain  of  the 
forfeitures  and  seizures  provided  by  the  act. 

There  had  been  men — and  there  continued  to  be  through 
out  the  war — who  believed,  or  pretended  to  believe,  that  peace 
and  Union  could  be  won  without  war — that  friendly  negotia 
tion  would  settle  everything.  There  never  was  any  basis 
for  these  fancies,  except  in  rebel  desires  to  embarrass  the 
government,  or  in  party  policy  among  those  opposed  to  the 
administration,  or  in  the  hearts  of  simple  men  who  believed 
that  reason  and  common  sense  had  a  place  in  the  counsels  of 
the  rebel  leaders.  From  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion  to 
the  end,  there  was  not  a  time  in  which  peace  could  have  been 
procured,  short  of  an  acknowledgment  of  the  independence 
of  the  confederate  rebel  states,  as  events  have  proved.  ME. 
Lincoln  understood  this,  and  understood  better  than  the 


388  LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

country  generally  the  desperate  men  with  whom  he  had  to 
deal ;  yet  he  never  repelled  those  who  thought  they  had  found 
some  way  to  peace  besides  the  bloody  way.  Late  in  1862,  a 
period  which  showed  decided  advantages  won  by  the  Union 
forces,  regarded  as  a  whole,  Fernando  Wood,  the  man  who, 
as  Mayor  of  New  York,  had  advocated  the  separate  secession 
of  that  metropolis  and  its  erection  into  a  free  city,  wrote  Mr. 
Lincoln  a  letter,  stating  that,  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  Novem 
ber,  he  was  reliably  advised  that  "The  southern  states  would 
send  representatives  to  the  next  Congress,"  provided  that  a 
full  and  general  amnesty  should  permit  them  to  do  so.  Mr. 
Wood  urged  his  point  with  ardent  professions  of  loyalty,  and 
with  arguments  drawn  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  inaugural;  but 
Mr.  Lincoln  passed  by  his  arguments  and  exhortations,  and, 
in  a  reply  dated  December  twelfth,  said  that  the  most  impor 
tant  part  of  his  (Wood's)  letter  related  to  the  alleged  fact 
that  men  from  the  South  were  ready  to  appear  in  Congress, 
on  the  terms  stated.  "I  strongly  suspect  your  information 
will  prove  to  be  groundless,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln ;  "nevertheless, 
I  thank  you  for  communicating  it  to  me.  Understanding  the 
phrase  in  the  paragraph  above  quoted,  'the  southern  states 
would  send  representatives  to  the  next  Congress,'  to  be  sub 
stantially  the  same  as  that  'the  people  of  the  southern  states 
would  cease  resistance,  and  would  re-inaugurate,  submit  to, 
and  maintain,  the  national  authority,  within  the  limits  of  such 
states,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,'  I  say 
that  in  such  case  the  war  wTould  cease  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  if,  within  a  reasonable  time,  a  full  and 
general  amnesty  were  necessary  to  such  an  end,  it  would  not 
be  withheld."  * 

Mr.  Wood  thought  the  President  ought  to  make  an  effort 
to  verify  his  (Wood's)  statement,  by  permitting  a  correspond 
ence  to  take  place  between  the  rebels,  and  gentlemen  "whose 
former  political  and  social  relations  with  the  leaders  of  the 
southern  revolt"  would  make  them  good  media  for  the  pur 
pose,  the  correspondence  all  to  be  submitted  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  latter,  however,  knew  Mr.  Wood,  and  knew  that  he  bore 


LIFE    OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  389 

no  good-will  to  him,  or  his  administration,  or  the  country ;  and 
he  told  him  that  he  did  not  think  it  would  do  any  good  to  com 
municate  what  he  had  said  to  the  South,  either  formally  or 
informally,  for  they  already  knew  it.  Neither  did  he  think  it 
the  time  to  stop  military  operations  for  negotiations.  If  Mr. 
Wood  had  any  positive  information,  he  should  be  glad  to  get 
it ;  and  such  information  might  be  more  valuable  before  the 
first  of  January  than  after  it.  At  this,  Mr.  Wood  was  filled 
with  "profound  regret;"  and  proceeded  to  read  Mr.  Lincoln 
a  solemn  lecture  on  his1  Constitutional  obligations,  which, 
doubtless,  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the 
President,  as  he  was  not  known,  in  a  single  instance,  to  be 
unmindful  of  those  obligations  afterwards.  The  kernel  of 
this  nut  was  in  the  words :  "  Your  emancipation  proclamation 
told  of  punishment.  Let  another  be  issued,  speaking  the  lan 
guage  of  mercy,  and  breathing  the  spirit  of  conciliation." 
Mr.  Wood  was  interposing  on  behalf  of  his  .southern  friends, 
to  prevent  a  final  proclamation  of  emancipation ;  and  he  knew 
this  was  to  come  on  the  first  of  January,  and  that  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  allusion  to  that  date  was  a  gentle  hint  to  him  that  the 
executive  purposes  were  undisturbed  and  that  he  was  under 
stood. 

But  we  are  getting  ahead  of  great  events  which  were  des 
tined  to  have  a  radical  influence  upon  the  war,  upon  the  sen 
timents  and  sympathies  of  Christendom,  upon  the  social  insti 
tutions  of  the  country,  and  the  destinies  of  a  race.  Mr. 
Wood's  allusion  to  the  emancipation  proclamation  touched  a 
document  and  an  event  of  immeasurable  importance ;  and  to 
these  we  now  turn  our  attention. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  tried  faithfully,  in  accordance  with  his 
oath  of  office  and  his  repeated  professions,  to  save  the  Union 
without  disturbing  a  single  institution  which  lived  under  it. 
He  had  warned  the  insurgent  states  of  a  measure  touching 
slavery  that  their  contumac^  would  render  necessary.  He 
had  besought  the  border  slave  states  to  take  themselves  out 
of  the  way  of  that  impending  measure.  He  had  braved  the 
criminations  and  the  impatience  of  his  friends  for  his  tender- 


390  LIFE    OF   ABKAIIAM   LINCOLN. 

ness  toward  an  institution  which  the  Constitution  protected. 
He  had  been  accused  of  being  under  the  pro-slavery  influence 
of  the  border  states ;  yet,  during  all  this  time,  he  had  enter 
tained  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  as  a  measure  which 
would  be  almost  sure  to  come  in  time,  and  which  he  had  de 
termined  should  come  just  so  soon  as  it  could  be  justified  to 
his  own  conscience  and  to  history,  as  a  military  necessity.  In 
no  other  event  could  he  take  this  step,  consistently  with  his 
oath. 

Emancipation  was  a  measure  of  ineffable  moment,  and  one 
which  dwelt  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  thoughts  by  day  and  by  night. 
By  his  own  subsequent  revelations,  it  was  a  measure  which, 
upon  his  knees,  he  had  presented  to  his  Maker.  The  events 
of  the  Peninsular  campaign  were  connected  in  his  mind  with 
the  tenacity  with  which  he  held  to  the  unchristian  institution.  * 
He  sought  not  only  fgr  the  people's  will  upon  the  subject,  but 
the  will  of  God;  and  there  is  no  question  that  he  regarded 
the  misfortunes  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  as  providentially 
connected  with  the  relations  of  the  government  to  the  great 
curse  which  was  the  motive  of  the  rebellion. 

Fortunately,  we  have  the  record  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  reason 
ing  upon  the  subject,  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Mr.  A. 
G.  Hodges  of  Frankfort,  Kentucky,  April  4th,  1864.  Mr. 
Hodges  had  previously  had  a  conversation  wTith  him,  and  had 
requested  him  to  put  into  'writing  the  substance  of  his  re-  / 
marks.  The  President  complied;  and,  to  show  that  he  had 
acted  in  his  emancipation  policy  purely  upon  military  neces 
sity,  stated,  that,  although  he  was  naturally  anti-slavery,  and 
could  not  remember  when  he  did  not  think  and  feel  that  slav 
ery  was  wrong,  he  never  understood  that  the  presidency  con 
ferred  upon  him  any  right  to  act  upon  that  judgment  and  feel 
ing.  He  understood  that  his  oath  of  office  forbade  the  prac 
tical  indulgence  of  his  abstract  moral  hatred  of  slavery.  He 
had  declared  that,  many  times,  in  many  ways.  But  he  shall 
say  the  rest  in  his  own  language : 

"  I  did  understand,  however,  that  very  oath  to  preserve  the  Constitu 
tion  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  imposed  upon  me  the  duty  of  preserving, 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  391 

by  every  indispensable  means,  that  government — that  nation  of  which 
that  Constitution  was  the  organic  law.  Was  it  possible  to  lose  the  na 
tion  and  yet  preserve  the  Constitution  ?  By  general  law,  life  and  limb 
must  be  protected;  yet  often  a  limb  must  be  amputated  to  save  a  life, 
but  a  life  is  never  wisely  given  to  save  a  limb.  I  felt  that  measures, 
otherwise  unconstitutional,  might  become  lawful  by  becoming  indispens 
able  to  the  preservation  of  the  Constitution  through  the  preservation  of 
the  nation.  Right  or  wrong,  I  assumed  this  ground,  and  now  avow  it. 
I  could  not  feel  that,  to*the  best  of  my  ability,  I  had  even  tried  to  pre 
serve  the  Constitution,  if,  to  preserve  slavery,  or  any  minor  matter,  I 
should  permit  the  wreck  of  government,  country,  and  Constitution  al 
together.  When,  early  in  the  war,  General  Fremont  attempted  military 
emancipation,  I  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  then  think  it  an  indispens 
able  necessity.  When,  a  little  later,  General  Cameron,  then  Secretary  of 
War,  suggested  the  arming  of  the  blacks,  I  objected,  because  I  did  not 
yet  think  it  an  indispensable  necessity.*  When,  still  later,  General 
Hunt»r  attempted  military  emancipation,  I  again  forbade  it,  because  I 
did  not  yet  think  the  indispensable  necessity  had  come.  When,  in 
March  and  May  and  July,  1862, 1  made  earnest  and  successive  appeals 
to  the  border  states  to  favor  compensated  emancipation,  I  believed  the 
indispensable  necessity  for  military  emancipation  and  arming  the  blacks 
would  come,  unless  averted  by  that  measure.  They  declined  the  prop 
osition;  and  I  was,  in  my  best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of 
either  surrendering.the  Union,  and  with  it  the  Constitution,  or  of  laying 
strong  hand  upon  the  colored  element.  I  chose  the  latter." 

With  Mr.  Lincoln's  statement  of  the  results  of  his  action, 
which  completes  the  letter,  we  have  nothing  at  present  to  do. 

We  have  thus  the  political  and  military  reasons  for  pro 
claiming  emancipation  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  language;  and 
we  are  scarcely  less  fortunate  in  a  record  of  his  personal 
struggles  and  feelings,  made  by  Mr.  F.  B.  Carpenter,  who 
had  the  privilege  of  frequent  intimate  conversations  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  while  he  was  employed  at  the  White  House,  upon 
his  picture  commemorative  of  a  scene  in  the  event  itself. 

It  was  mid-summer  in  1862,  when,  things  having  gone  on 

*  This  allusion  is  to  a  passage  of  Mr.  Cameron's  annual  report,  which 
he  had  sent  off  to  the  press  for  publication  without  receiving  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  approval.  The  publication  of  the  objectionable  paragraph  was 
suppressed  by  telegraph  from  Washington,  while  the  fact  that  Mr.  Cam 
eron  ventured  upon  such  an  act  without  consulting  the  President,  occa 
sioned  him  great  annoyance  and  vexation. 


392  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

from  bad  to  worse,  he  felt  that  he  must  "  change  his  tactics  or 
lose  his  game."  So,  without  consulting  his  cabinet,  or  giv 
ing  them  any  knowledge  of  what  he  was  doing,  he  prepared 
the  original  draft  of  the  Proclamation.  Now  it  should  be  re 
membered,  in  order  to  understand  Mr.  Lincoln's  peculiarity 
of  arguing  against  his  own  conclusions,  until  his  time  should 
come  for  uttering  them,  that  this  was  before  the  date  of  his 
letter  to  Horace  Greeley,  already  given  to  the  reader,  in  which 
he  gives  no  hint  of  his  determination,  but  only  lays  out  the 
ground  upon  which  he  should  make  it.  It  was  also  previous 
to  a  visit  which  he  received  from  a  body  of  Chicago  clergy 
men,  who  called  to  urge  upon  him  the  emancipation  policy. 
The  proclamation  was  all  written;  and  it  was  a  full  month 
after  its  utterance  had  been  determined  on  in  Cabinet  meet 
ing,  when  he  told  these  clergymen :  "  I  do  not  want  to  issue 
a  document  that  the  whole  world  will  see  must  necessarily  be 
inoperative,  like  the  Pope's  bull  against  the  comet."  He 
wished  them,  however,  not  to  misunderstand  him.  He  had 
simply  indicated  some  of  the  difficulties  that  had  stood  in  his 
way ;  but  he  had  not  decided  against  a  proclamation  of  liberty 
to  the  slaves.  "Whatever  shall  appear  to  be  God's  will," 
said  he,  "I  will  do."  Throughout  this  affair,  and  indeed  in 
all  the  great  affairs  in  which  he  took  part,  he  followed  the  old 
practice  of  his  legal  career,  of  arguing  his  opponent's  side  of 
the  question — often  for  the  simple  purpose,  evidently,  of  win 
ning  support  for  his  own  convictions. 

Sometime  during  the  last  of  July,  or  the  first  part  of  Au> 
gust,  he  called  a  cabinet  meeting.  None  of  the  members 
knew  the  occasion  of  the  meeting,  and  for  some  time  they 
were  unable  to  ascertain,  for  there  was  a  delay.  What  was 
its  cause?  Here  was  an  august  body  of  men.  All  the  cabi^ 
net  were  present  excepting  Mr.  Blair,  who  came  in  afterwards. 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  before  him  a  document  which  he  knew  was 
to  perpetuate  his  name  to  all  futurity, — a  document  which  in 
volved  the  liberty  of  four  millions  of  human  beings  then  liv 
ing,  and  of  untold  millions  then  unborn, — which  changed  the 
policy  of  the  government  and  the  course  and  character  of  the 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.,  393 

war, — which  revolutionized  the  social  institutions  of  more 
than  a  third  of  the  nation, — which  brought  all  the  govern^ 
ments  of  Christendom  into  new  relations  to  the  rebellion, — and 
which  involved  Mr.  Lincoln's  recognition  of  the  will  of  the 
Divine  Ruler  of  the  universe.  It  was  the  supreme  moment 
of  his  life.  Did  he  feel  it  to  be  so?  He  did;  and  he  took  his 
own  way  of  showing  it.  He  took  down  from  a  shelf  a  copy  of 
"  Artemus  Ward — His  Book,"  and  read  an  entire  chapter  of 
that  literary  harlequin's  drollery,  giving  himself  up  to  laugh 
ter  the  most  hearty,  until  some  of  the  dignified  personages 
around  him  were  far  more  pained  than  amused.  Little  did 
those  men  understand  the  pressure  of  the  occasion  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln's  mind,  and  the  necessity  of  this  diversion. 

A  member  of  this  noble  and  notable  group  has  said  that, 
on  closing  the  trifling  volume,  the  whole  tone  and  manner  of 
the  President  changed  instantaneously ;  and,  rising  to  a  grand 
eur  of  demeanor  that  inspired  in  all  a  profound  respect,  akin 
to  awe,  he  announced  to  them  the  object  of  the  meeting.  He 
had  written  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  and  had  deter 
mined  to  issue  it.  He  had  not  called  them  together  to  ask 

O 

their  advice  on  the  general  question,  because  he  had  deter 
mined  it  for  himself.  He  wished  to  inform  them  of  his  pur 
pose,  and  to  receive  such  suggestions  upon  minor  points  as 
they  might  be  moved  to  make.  Mr.  Chase  wished  the  lan 
guage  stronger  with  reference  to  arming  the  blacks.  Mr. 
Blair  deprecated  the  policy,  because  it  would  cost  the  admin 
istration  the  fall  elections ;  but  nothing  was  said  which  the 
President  had  not  anticipated,  until  Mr.  Seward  said:  "Mr. 
President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  bu£  I  question  the 
expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depression  of 
the  public  mind  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses  is  so 
great  that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may 
be  viewed  as  the  last  measure  of  an  exhausted  government — 

c^ 

a  cry  for  help — the  government  stretching  forth  its  hands  to 
Ethiopia,  instead  of  Ethiopia  stretching  forth  her  hands  to 
the  government — our  last  shriek  on  the  retreat."  He  furfher 
advised  Mr.  Lincoln  to  postpone  the  measure  until  it  could  be 


394  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

given  to  the  country  supported  by  military  success,  rather 
than  after  the  greatest  disasters  of  the  war. 

Mr.  Lincoln  admitted  the  force  of  the  suggestion,  and  so 
the  matter  was  suspended  for  a  brief  period.  This  was  be 
fore  General  Pope's  retreat  upon  Washington,  and  the  inva 
sion  of  Maryland ;  and  during  all  these  disasters  the  procla 
mation  waited,  though  it  was  occasionally  taken  out  and 
retouched.  At  last  came  the  battle  of  Antietam,  and  the 
news  of  national  success  met  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  Soldier's 
Home.  There  he  immediately  wrote  the  second  draft  of  the 
preliminary  proclamation,  and  came  back  to  Washington  on 
Saturday  of  that  week,  and  held  a  cabinet  meeting,  at  which 
he  declared  that  the  time  for  the  enunciation  of  the  emanci 
pation  policy  could  no  longer  be  delayed.  Public  sentiment, 
he  thought,  would  sustain  it;  many  of  his  warmest  friends 
and  supporters  demanded  it;  "and,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  in 
a  low  and  reverent  tone,  "  I  have  promised  my  God  that  I 
will  do  it."  These  last  words  were  hardly  heard  by  any 
one  but  Mr.  Chase,  who  sat  nearest  to  him.  Mr.  Chase 
inquired:  "Did  I  understand  you  correctly,  Mr.  President?" 
Mr.  Lincoln  replied:  UI  made  a  solemn  vow  before  God  that, 
if  General  Lee  should  be  driven  back  from  Pennsylvania, 
I  would  crown  the  result  by  the  declaration  of  freedom  to 
the  slaves." 

This  statement  was  made  by  Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Carpenter, 
and  does  not  differ  materially  from  one  communicated  to  t-he 
writer  by  Hon.  George  S.  Boutwell  of  Massachusetts.  Mr. 
Boutwell,  then  in  Washington,  determined  in  October  to  visit 
Massachusetts,  and  take  a  part  in  the  state  canvass ;  and  pre 
vious  to  his  departure  he  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln.  In  the 
course  of  the  interview,  he  told  the  President  that  an  active 
leader  of  the  People's  Party  in  Massachusetts  had  asserted, 
in  a  public  speech,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  frightened  into  issu 
ing  the  emancipation  proclamation,  by  the  meeting  of  loyal 
governors  at  Altoona,  Pennsylvania,  which  had  occurred  dur 
ing  the  summer.  -'Now,"  said  the  President,  dropping  into 
a  chair,  as  if  he  meant  to  be  at  ease,  "I  can  tell  you  just  how 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  395 

that  was.  "When  Lee  came  over  the  river,  I  made  a  resolve 
that  when  McClellan  should  drive  him  back, — and  I  expected 
he  would  do  it  some  time  or  other, — I  would  send  the  procla 
mation  after  him.  I  worked  upon  it,  and  got  it  pretty  much 
prepared.  The  battle  of  Antietam  was  fought  on  Wednesday, 
but  I  could  not  find  out  till  Saturday  whether  we  had  really  won 
a  victory  or  not.  It  was  then  too  late  to  issue  the  proclama 
tion  that  week,  and  I  dressed  it  over  a  little  on  Sunday,  and 
Monday  I  gave  it  to  them.  The  fact  is,  I  never  thought  of 
the  meeting  of  the  governors  at  Altoona,  and  I  can  hardly  re 
member  that  I  knew  anything  about  it." 

On  Monday,  the  22d  of  September,  1862,  the  proclamation 
was  issued.  Even  from  this  sweeping  measure  he  had  left  an 
opportunity  to  escape.  It  was  only  a  preliminary  proclama 
tion.  It  only  declared  free  the  slaves  of  those  states  and 
those  sections  of  states  which  should  be  in  rebellion  on  the 
1st  of  January,  1863,  leaving  to  every  rebel  state  an  oppor 
tunity  to  save  its  pet  institution  by  becoming  loyal,  and  doing 
what  it  could  to  save  the  Union: 

"I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof,  do  hereby  pro 
claim  and  declare  that  hereafter,  as  heretofore,  the  war  will  be  prose 
cuted  for  the  object  of  practically  restoring  the  constitutional  relation 
between  the  United  States  and  each  of  the  states,  and  the  people 
thereof,  in  which  states  that  relation  is  or  may  be  suspended  or  dis 
turbed. 

"  That  it  is  my  purpose,  upon  the  next  meeting  of  Congress,  to  again 
recommend  the  adoption  of  a  practical  measure  tendering  pecuniary 
aid  to  the  free  acceptance  or  rejection  of  all  slave  states  so-called,  the 
people  whereof  may  not  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
and  which  states  may  then  have  voluntarily  adopted,  or  thereafter  may 
voluntarily  adopt,  immediate  or  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery  within 
their  respective  limits ;  and  that  the  effort  to  colonize  persons  of  Afri 
can  descent,  with  their  consent,  upon  this  continent  or  elsewhere,  with 
the  previously  obtained  consent  of  the  governments  existing  there,  will 
be  continued. 

"  That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within 
any  state,  or  designated  part  of  a  state,  the  people  whereof  shall  then 


396  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward, 
and  forever  free ;  and  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States, 
including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and 
maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  re 
press  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for 
their  actual  freedom. 

"  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by 
proclamation,  designate  the  states  and  parts  of  states,  if  any,  in  which 
the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the 
United  States ;  and  the  fact  that  any  state,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall 
on  that  day  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of 
the  qualified  voters  of  such  state  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evi 
dence  that  such  state,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States. 

"  That  attention  is  hereby  called  to  an  act  of  Congress  entitled  '  An 
Act  to  make  an  additional  Article  of  War,'  approved  March  13th,  1862, 
and  which  act  is  in  the  words  and  figures  following : 

" '  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  tlie  United 
States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  hereafter  the  following 
shall  be  promulgated  as  an  additional  article  of  war  for  the  government 
of  the  army  of  the  United  States,  and  shall  be  obeyed  and  observed  as 
such : 

"  *  ARTICLE — All  officers  or  persons  in  the  military  or  naval  service 
of  the  United  States  are  prohibited  from  employing  any  of  the  forces 
under  their  respective  commands  for  the  purpose  of  returning  fugitives 
from  service  or  labor  who  may  have  escaped  from  any  persons  to  whom 
such  service  or  labor  is  claimed  to  be  due;  and  any  officer  who  shall  be 
found  guilty  by  a  court-martial  of  violating  this  article  shall  be  dis 
missed  from  the  service.' 

"'SEC.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  this  act  shall  take  effect 
from  and  after  its  passage.' 

"  Also,  to  the  ninth  and  tenth  sections  of  an  act  entitled  '  An  Act  to 
suppress  Insurrection,  to  punish  Treason  and  Rebellion,  to  seize  and 
confiscate  Property  of  Rebels,  and  for  other  purposes,'  approved  July 
16th,  1862,  and  which  sections  are  in  the  words  and  figures  following: 

"'SEC.  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  all  slaves  of  persons  who 
shall  hereafter  be  engaged  in  rebellion  against  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  or  who  shall  in  any  way  give  aid  or  comfort  thereto,  es 
caping  from  such  persons  and  taking  refuge  within  the  lines  of  the 
army;  and  all  slaves  captured  from  such  persons,  or  deserted  by  them, 
and  coming  under  the  control  of  the  government  of  the  United  States; 
and  all  slaves  of  such  persons  found  on  [or]  being  within  any  place  oc- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  397 

cupied  by  rebel  forces  and  afterwards  occupied  by  forces  of  the  United 
States,  shall  be  deemed  captives  of  war,  and  shall  be  forever  free  of 
their  servitude,  and  not  again  held  as  slaves. 

" '  SEC.  10.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  no  slave  escaping  into  any 
state,  territory,  or  the  District  of  Columbia,  from  any  other  state,  shall 
be  delivered  up,  or  in  any  way  impeded  or  hindered  of  his  liberty, 
except  for  crime,  or  some  offense  against  the  laws,  unless  the  person 
claiming  said  fugitive  shall  first  make  oath  that  the  person  to  whom 
the  labor  or  service  of  such  fugitive  is  alleged  to  be  due  is  his  lawful 
owner,  and  has  not  borne  arms  against  the  United  States  in  the  present 
rebellion,  nor  in  any  way  given  aid  and  comfort  thereto;  and  no  person 
engaged  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States  shall, 
under  any  pretense  whatever,  assume  to  decide  on  the  validity  of  the 
claim  of  any  person  to  the  service  or  labor  of  any  other  person,  or  sur 
render  up  any  such  person  to  the  claimant,  on  pain  of  being  dismissed 
from  the  service.' 

"And  I  do  hereby  enjoin  upon  and  order  all  persons  engaged  in  the 
military  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States  to  observe,  obey,  and 
enforce,  within  their  respective  spheres  of  service,  the  act  and  sections 
above  recited. 

"  And  the  Executive  will  in  due  time  recommend  that  all  citizens  of 
the  United  States  who  shall  have  remained  loyal  thereto  throughout 
the  rebellion,  shall  (upon  the  restoration  of  the  constitutional  relation 
between  the  United  States  and  their  respective  states  and  people,  if 
tha-t  relation  shall  have  been  suspended  or  disturbed)  be  compensated 
for  all  losses  by  acts  of  the  United  States,  including  the  loss  of  slaves. 

"In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and  caused  the 
seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"  Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  tenth  day  of  April,  in  the  year 
of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  and  of 
[L.  s.]  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"By  the  President: 
"  WM.  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State." 

In  the  cabinet  meeting  held  previous  to  the  issue  of  the 
proclamation,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  concluded  the  reading  of  the 
third  paragraph,  when  Mr.  Seward  interrupted  him  by  say 
ing  :  "  Mr.  President,  I  think  that  you  should  insert  after 
the  word,  'recognize,'  the  words, ' and  maintain.' "  The  Pres 
ident  replied  that  he  had  fully  considered  the  import  of  the 
expression,  and  that  it  was  not  his  way  to  promise  more  than 
he  was  sure  he  could  perform ;  and  he  was  not  prepared  to 


398  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

say  that  he  thought  he  was  able  to  "maintain"  this.  Mr. 
Seward  insisted  that  the  ground  should  be  taken,  and  the 
words  finally  went  in. 

The  proclamation  was  received  with  profound  interest  by 
the  whole  country.  The  radical  anti-slavery  men  were  de 
lighted,  conservative  politicians  shrugged  their  shoulders 
doubtfully,  and  the  lovers  of  the  peculiar  institution  gnashed 
their  teeth.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  it  affected  the  fall 
elections  so  much  adversely  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  the  fact  that 
he  was  ignorantly  or  maliciously  held  responsible  for  the  blun 
ders  of  McClellan's  campaign.  If  it  affected  them  at  all  un 
favorably,  its  influence  in  that  direction  soon  ceased ;  and  the 
proclamation  became  his  tower  of  strength  in  the  sight  of  his 
own  people  and  the  peoples  of  the  world. 

Two  days  after  the  issue  of  the  proclamation,  a  large  body 
of  men  assembled  before  the  White  House  with  music,  and 
called  for  the  President.  He  appeared,  and  addressed  to  them 
a  few  words  of  thanks  for  their  courtesy,  and,  in  alluding  to 
the  proclamation,  said:  "What  I  did,  I  did  after  a  very  full 
deliberation,  and  under  a  heavy  and  solemn  sense  of  respon 
sibility.  I  can  only  trust  in  God  I  have  made  no  mistake." 
After  two  years  of  experience  he  was  enabled  to  say:  "As 
affairs  have  turned,  it  is  the  central  act  of  my  administration, 
and  the  great  event  of  the  nineteenth  century." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  General  McClellan  had  warned 
Mr.  Lincoln  against  the  effect  of  a  general  policy  of  emanci 
pation  upon  his  army.  He  thought  that  such  a  policy  would 
cause  its  disintegration.  It  certainly  became  a  theme  of  angry 
discussion ; — so  much  so  that,  on  the  seventh  of  October,  the 
General  felt  called  upon  to  issue  an  order  reminding  officers 
and  soldiers  of  their  relations  and  their  duties  to  the  civil  au 
thorities.  It  was  an  admirable  order,  and  evidently  well  in 
tended.  "  Discussion  by  officers  and  soldiers  concerning  pub 
lic  measures,  determined  upon  and  declared  by  the  govern 
ment,"  said  he,  "when  carried  beyond  the  ordinary  temperate 
and  respectful  expression  of  opinion,  tends  greatly  to  impair 
and  destroy  the  discipline  and  efficiency  of  the  troops,  by 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  399 

substituting  the  spirit  of  political  faction,  for  the  firm,  steady, 
and  earnest  support  of  the  authority  of  the  government, 
which  is  the  highest  duty  of  the  American  soldier."  If  there 
was  any  fault  to  be  found  with  the  order,  it  was  connected 
with  the  time  of  its  promulgation.  It  was  issued  the  day  af 
ter  Mr.  Lincoln  left  the  army,  which,  it  will  be  remembered, 
he  visited  while  it  rested  from  the  battle  of  Antietam.  Gen 
eral  McClellan  had  learned  something  during  that  visit.  He 
had  learned  that,  notwithstanding  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation, 
he  was  held  in  strong  and  enthusiastic  affection  by  the  army. 
For  nearly  a  week,  he  mingled  with  the  weary  officers  and 
soldiers,  meeting  the  heartiest  reception  everywhere.  A  gen 
eral  officer  who  was  with  the  President  on  the  trip,  said:  "I 
watched  closely  to  see  if,  in  any  division,  or  regiment,  I  could 
find  symptoms  of  dissatisfaction,  or  could  hear  an  allusion  to  the 
proclamation.  I  found  none.  I  heard  only  words  of  praise." 

It  was  undoubtedly  the  aim  of  traitors  outside  of  the  army, 
and  of  their  sympathizers  within,  to  alienate  the  army  from 
the  President  and  the  government;  but  they  failed.  One 
Major  Key  came  down  from  the  army  to  Washington,  with 
the  story  that  our  Generals  did  not  push  the  advantages  they 
had  won,  because  it  was  not  considered  desirable  to  crush  the 
rebellion  at  once,  if,  indeed,  at  all ;  but  so  to  manage  affairs  as 
to  secure  a  compromise  as  the  result  of  a  prolonged  war.  It  is 
quite  probable  that  he  had  heard  this  talk  among  the  leading 
officers,  as  he  declared  he  had.  One  thing  was  evident — that 
he  agreed  with  their  policy ;  and,  telling  Mr.  Lincoln  plainly 
so  to  his  face,  he  was  at  once  removed  from  the  service.  The 
example  served  an  excellent  purpose ;  and,  with  McClellan's 
order,  and  the  effect  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  personal  visit,  brought 
the  disloyal  and  factious  elements  of  the  army  into  their 
proper  relations  to  the  government  and  its  policy. 

On  the  1st  of  January,  1863,  the  final  proclamation  of 
emancipation  was  issued,  and  the  great  act  was  complete.  It 
was  as  follows: 

"  Whereas,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation 


400  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

•was  issued  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  containing,  amolig 
other  things,  the  following,  to  wit:  .„ 

"'That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within 
any  state  or  designated  part  of  a  state,  the  people  whereof  shall  then 
be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward, 
and  forever  free;  and  the  Executive  government  of  the  United  States, 
including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and 
maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  re 
press  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  eiforts  they  may  make  for 
their  actual  freedom. 

'"That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by 
proclamation,  designate  the  states  and  parts  of  states,  if  any,  in  which 
the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the 
United  States;  and  the  fact  that  any  state  or  the  people  thereof  shall 
on  that  day  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of 
the  qualified  voters  of  such  state  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evi 
dence  that  such  state,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States.' 

"Now,  therefore,  I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of  the  United 
States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  actual  armed  rebel 
lion  against  the  authority  and  government  of  the  United  States,  and  as 
a  fit  and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion,  do,  on 
this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do, 
publicly  proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from  the 
day  first  above  mentioned,  order  and  designate,  as  the  states  and  parts 
of  states  wherein  the  people  thereof  respectively  are  this  day  in  rebel 
lion  against  the  United  States,  the  following,  to  wit : 

"Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes  of  St.  Bernard, 
Plaque  mine,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension,  As 
sumption,  Terre  Bonne,  Lafourche,  St.  Marie,  St.  Martin  and  Orleans, 
including  the  city  of  New  Orleans),  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Geor 
gia,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia  (except  the  forty- 
eight  counties  designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of 
Berkely,  Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess  Anne, 
and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth),  and 
which  exccpted  parts  are  for  the  present  left  precisely  as  if  this  procla 
mation  were  not  issued. 

"And,  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  I  do  or 
der  and  declare  that  all  persons  beld  as  slaves  within  said  designated 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  401 

I 

States  and  parts  of  States,  are,  and  henceforward  shall  be  free ;  and 
that  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the 
military  and  naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  said  persons. 

"  And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to  be  free,  to  ab 
stain  from  all  violence,  unless  in  necessary  self-defense ;  and  I  recommend 
to  them,  that  in  all  cases,  when  allowed,  they  labor  faithfully  for  reason 
able  wages. 

"  And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such  persons  of  suitable 
condition  will  be  received  into  the  armed  service  of  the  United  States, 
to  garrison  forts,  positions,  stations  and  other  places,  and  to  man  vessels 
of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 

"And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  war 
ranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  con 
siderate  judgment  of  mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God. 

"In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  name,  and  caused  the 
seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"  Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year 
of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  of 
[L.  s.]  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

"ABRAHAM   LlXCOLX. 

"By  the  President: 
"  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State" 

A  single  paragraph  in  this  proclamation  was  written  by 
Secretary  Chase.  He  had  himself  prepared  a  proclamation, 
which  embodied  his  views,  and  had  submitted  it  to  Mr.  Lin 
coln.  Mr.  Lincoln  selected  from  it  this  sentence :  "  And  upon 
this  act,  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice  warranted  by  the 
Constitution  [upon  military  necessity,]  I  invoke  the  consider 
ate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty 
God;"  and  adopted  it,  interpolating  only  the  words  between 
brackets.  It  is  an  illustration  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  freedom  from 
vanity,  first  that  he  adopted  the  words  at  all,  notwithstand 
ing  their  dignity  and  beauty ;  and,  second,  that  he  freely  told 
of  the  circumstance,  so  that  it  found  publicity  through  his 
own  revelations. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  of  September,  two  days  after  the 
issue  of  the  preliminary  proclamation,  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  ut 
terance  to  a  proclamation  suspending  the  writ  of  habeas  cor 
pus.  Proceeding  from  the  fact  that  the  ordinary  processes 
26 


402  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  law  were  not  sufficient  to  restrain  disloyal  persons  from 
hindering  the  execution  of  a  draft  of  militia  which  had  been 
ordered,  discouraging  enlistments,  and  giving  aid  and  comfort 
in  various  ways  to  the  insurrection,  he  declared  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  suspended,  touching  all  persons  who  should  be 
arrested,  confined,  or  sentenced  by  court  martial,  for  these 
offenses.  The  measure  created  great  dissatisfaction,  particu 
larly  among  those  who  were  not  in  favor  of  the  war,  and  those 
who  were  anxious  to  make  political  headway  against  the  ad 
ministration.  There  was  an  outcry  against  "military  despot 
ism,"  against  the  "abridgment  of  the  right  of  free  speech," 
against  the  "suppression  of  the  liberty  of  the  press,"  etc. 
etc.;  the  freedom  with  which  these  strictures  were  made, 
without  attracting  the  slightest  notice  of  the  government,  re 
futing  the  charges  as  rapidly  as  they  were  uttered. 

At  the  succeeding  session  of  Congress,  these  complaints 
had  immediate  expression ;  and  the  proclamation  was  furiously 
attacked  at  once.  Resolutions  were  introduced,  censuring  the 
"arbitrary  arrest"  of  persons  in  the  loyal  states;  and  the 
suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  vehemently  de 
nounced.  It  appeared  by  these  demonstrations  that  the  public 
liberty  was  endangered,  and  that  the  Constitution  was  sub 
verted.  It  is  possible  that  some  of  those  engaged  in  this 
outcry  were  honest  in  their  fears  and  denunciations ;  but  some 
of  them  were  notorious  sympathizers  with  the  rebels,  and 
were  doing,  and  had  done  everything  in  their  power  to  aid 
the  rebellion.  Nothing  was  more  notorious  than  that  the 
country  abounded  with  ^spies  and  informers,  and  men  who 
discouraged  enlistments,  and  counseled  resistance  to  a  draft. 
Congress,  however,  was  on  the  side  of  the  government,  and 
passed  a  bill  sustaining  the  President,  and  indemnifying  him 
and  all  who  acted  under  him  in  the  execution  of  his  policy. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  injustice  was  done  in  some  of  these 
"arbitrary  arrests" — it  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  it  were 
otherwise — but  the  prophets  of  the  degeneracy  of  the  gov 
ernment  into  a  military  despotism  have  their  answer  now,  in 
the  peaceful  and  ready  return  to  the  old  status. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN",  403 

• 

There  was  one  vice  of  the  army  that  gave  Mr."  Lincoln 
great  pain;  and  that  was  the  unnecessary  disregard  of  the 
Sabbath.  Armies,  of  course,  cannot  always  be  good  Sabbath- 
keepers  ;  but  he  saw  in  them  a  disposition  to  do  work  on  that 
day  not  at  all  necessary,  and  to  engage  in  sports  quite  in  dis 
sonance  with  its  spirit.  So,  on  the  sixteenth  of  November, 
he  issued  a  circular  letter  upon  the  subject,  in  which  he  told 
the  soldiers  that  "  the  importance  for  man  and  beast  of  the 
prescribed  weekly  rest,  the  sacred  rights  of  Christian  soldiers 
and  sailors,  a  becoming  deference  to  the  best  sentiment  of  a 
Christian  people,  and  a  due  regard  for  the  Divine  "Will,  de 
mand  that  Sunday  labor  in  the  army  and  navy  be  reduced  to 
the  measure  of  strict  necessity."  He  continued:  "The  dis 
cipline  and  character  of  the  national  forces  should  not  suffer, 
nor  the  cause  they  defend  be  imperiled,  by  the  profanation  of 
the  day,  or  the  name  of  the  Most  High."  The  letter  shows 
how  closely  he  had  associated  the  will  of  the  Most  High  with 
the  national  cause,  and  how  profound  was  his  reverence  for 
the  institutions  of  Christianity. 

This  chapter,  and  the  record  of  the  events  of  the  year,  can 
not  be  better  closed,  perhaps,  than  by  an  incident  which 
shows  that,  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  greatest  necessity  for  popular 
support,  he  disdained,  with  all  the  strength  of  his  old  sense  of 
justice  and  fairnes^any  trick  for  gaining  that  support.  After 
New  Orleans  was  Taken,  and  a  certain  portion  of  the  state 
reclaimed  and  held  by  military  power,  movements  were  com 
menced  for  the  representation  of  the  state  in  Congress.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  charged  with  conniving  with  this  movement, 
and  with  intending  to  secure  members  of  Congress  from  Lou 
isiana,  elected  under  military  pressure,  who  would  assist  in 
maintaining  his  policy,  and  make  a  show  of  the  returning  loy 
alty  of  the  state.  On  the  twenty-first  of  November,  he  wrote 
to  G.  F.  Shepley,  the  military  governor  of  Louisiana,  as  fol 
lows: 

"Dear  Sir— Dr.  Kennedy,  bearer  of  this,  has  some  apprehension  that 
Federal  officers,  not  citizens  of  Louisiana,  may  be  set  up  as  candidates 
for  Congress  in  that  state.  In  my  view,  there  could  be  no  possible  ob- 


404:  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ject  in  such  an  election.  We  do  not  particularly  need  members  of 
Congress  from  those  states  to  enable  us  to  get  along  with  legisla 
tion  here.  What  we  do  want  is  the  conclusive  evidence  that  respecta 
ble  citizens  of  Louisiana  are  willing  to  be  members  of  Congress,  and  to 
swear  support  to  the  Constitution ;  and  that  other  respectable  citizens 
there  are  willing  to  vote  for  them  and  send  them.  To  send  a  parcel  of 
northern  men  here  as  representatives,  elected  as  would  be  understood 
(and  perhaps  really  so),  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  would  be  disgrace 
ful  and  outrageous ;  and,  were  I  a  member  of  Congress  here,  I  would 
vote  against  admitting  any  such  man  to  a  seat." 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

THE  events  of  1863,  legislative,  military,  and  personal  as 
they  relate  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  must  receive  only  a  brief  and  con 
densed  review.  It  will  have  been  noticed,  by  several  incidents 
that  have  been  recorded  in  this  narrative,  and  by  sundry  pa 
pers  or  Mr.  Lincoln,  that,  during  the  whole  of  his  presidency 
thus  far,  he  had  indulged  in  projects  of  colonization  of  the 
freed  blacks.  Congress  had  so  far  regarded  his  suggestions 
as  to  place  at  his  disposal  a  sum  of  money  for  experiments  in 
colonization.  In  August,  1862,  he  called  to  the  Executive 
Mansion  a  representative  company  of  negroes  whom  he  famil 
iarly  addressed  on  the  subject,  freely  telling  them  of  the  dis 
advantages  under  which  they  labored,  expressing  his  convic 
tions  that  they  suffered  much  by  living  in  association  with  the 
whites,  and  uttering  his  conviction  that  the  whites  suffered  by 
living  with  them,  even  when  they  were  free.  His  wish  was 
to  have  them  colonized  at  some  point  in  Central  America ;  and 
he  promised  to  spend  some  of  the  money  intrusted  to  him,  if 
they  would  join  in  sufficient  numbers  to  make  an  experiment. 

In  his  nifly^ge  delivered  to  Congress  on  the  opening  of  the 
session  of  1862—63,  he  called  up  the  subject  again;  and  com 
municated  information  of  the  measures  he  had  taken,  for  effect 
ing  his  wishes,  and  securing  to  the  blacks  the  benefits  of  the 
congressional  provision.  He  had  had  correspondence  with 
some  of  the  Spanish- Amerioan  republics,  and  they  had  pro 
tested  against  the  reception  of  black  colonies.  He  had  declined 
to  move  any  colonists  forward,  under  the  circumstaiices,  and 


406  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

should  still  desist,  unless  they  could  be  protected.  Liberia 
and  Hayti  were  the  only  countries  to  which  they  could  go, 
with  the  certainty  of  immediate  adoption  as  citizens ;  and  the 
blacks  manifested  a  strange  indisposition  to  emigrate  to  those 
countries. 

This  dream  of  colonization,  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  so  be 
nevolently  indulged,  was  destined  to  fail  of  even  partial  real 
ization.  He  loved  the  negro  too  well  to  wish  him  to  remain 
where  the  prejudices  of  race  would  shut  him  out  from  the  full 
recognition  of  his  manhood.  He  not  only  wanted  him  free, 
but  he  wanted  him  located  where  he  might  receive  all  the 
rights  of  citizenship,  and  where  he  could  live — self-respectful 
and  independent — in  the  society  of  his  equals  and  his  race. 
It  was  a  matter  of  pitying  wonder  with  him  that  the  negro 
should  love  to  live  with  a  race  that  abused  him,  and  held  him 
at  so  low  a  value  in  the  scale  of  humanity. 

All  the  closing  portion  of  this  message  was  devoted  to  an 
earnest  discussion  of  the  scheme  of  compensated  emancipa 
tion.  Notwithstanding  he  had  issued  his  preliminary  procla 
mation  of  freedom  to  the  slaves  of  rebels,  and  expected  soon 
to  complete  that  work;  and  notwithstanding  his  conviction 
that  slavery  could  not  long  survive  this  proclamation,  even  in 
the  loyal  slave  states,  he  never  forgot  that  neither  over 
slavery  in  these  states,  the  Constitution  nor  the  necessities  of 
war  gave  him  any  control.  One  thing  he  did  forget,  viz: 
that  these  states  had  uniformly  turned  their  backs  upon  all 
his  earnest  and  kindly  efforts  to  save  them  from  a  loss  which 
he  was  certain  must  ultimately  fall  upon  them. 

"With  the  exposition  of  his  views  upon  this  subject,  Mr.  Lin 
coln  submitted  the  draft  of  a  resolution  embodj^^g  his  policy. 
This  resolution  proposed  certain  articles  as  amendments  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  leg 
islatures  or  conventions  of  the  several  states.  These  articles, 
by  being  adopted  by  the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the 
states,  should  become  valid,  and  be  held  as  parts  of  the  Con 
stitution.  They  provided  that  every  slave  state  which  should 
voluntarily  abolish  {he  slave  system  at  any  date  previous  to 


• 

LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  407 

the  year  1900,  should  receive  a  specified  compensation.  Slaves 
who  should  be  freed  by  the  chances  of  war  should  remain  free, 
though  loyal  masters  should  receive  compensation  for  them. 
The  closing  article  provided  that  Congress  might  "  appropriate 
money,  and  otherwise  provide  for  colonizing  free  colored  per 
sons,  with  their  own  consent,  at  any  place  or  places  without 
the  United  States." 

Sudden  emancipation  was  never  in  accordance  with  Mr. 
Lincoln's  judgment.  Nothing  but  the  necessities  of  war 
would  have  induced  him  to  decree  it  with  relation  to  the  slaves 
of  any  state.  His  thought  was,  that,  by  giving  every  state 
the  opportunity  to  terminate  slavery  in  its  own  way,  within  a 
period  of  thirty-seven  years,  the  institution  could  be  removed 
without  a  shock  to  the  prosperity  and  the  social  institutions  of 
the  whites,  and  without  bringing  to  the  blacks  a  freedom  which 
many  of  them,  at  least,  would  not  know  how  to  use.  The 
stress  of  feeling  under  which  he  urged  this  measure,  is  suffi 
ciently  exhibited  by  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  message : 
"Fellow  citizens," — thus  reads  the  passage — "We  cannot 
escape  history.  We  of  this  Congress,  and  this  Administration, 
will  be  remembered  in  spite  of  ourselves.  No  personal  sig 
nificance  or  insignificance  can  spare  one  or  another  of  us.  The 
fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass  will  light  us  down  in  honor 
or  dishonor  to  the  latest  generation.  We  say  that  we  are  for 
the  Union.  The  world  will  not  forget  that  we  say  this.  We 
know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world  knows  we  know 
how  to  save  it.  *  *  *  In  giving  freedom  to  the  slave,  we  as 
sure  freedom  to  the  free — honorable  alike  in  what  we  give 
and  what  we  preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save  or  meanly  lose 
the  last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may  succeed; 
thfs  could  not,  cannot,  fail.  The  way  is  plain,  peaceful,  gen 
erous,  just — a  way  which,  if  followed,  the  world  will  forever 
applaud,  and  God  must  forever  bless." 

Allusion  has  been  made,  in  the  preceding  chapter,  to  the 
action  of  this  session,  on  the  subject  of  arbitrary  arrests ;  and 
the  subject  does  not  need  to  be  recalled  further  than  to  say 
that  the  discussion  which  it  excited  fully  illustrated  the  polit- 


I 

408  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

ical  antagonisms  which,  prevalent  among  the  people,  were 
brought  into  thorough  exposition  by  their  representatives. 
In  the  precise  degree  in  which  the  members  of  both  houses 
sympathized  with  treason,  or  were  exercised  by  their  party 
feelings  against  the  general  policy  of  the  government  toward 
the  rebellion,  did  they  oppose  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus.  The  same  rule  held  good,  with  rare  exceptions, 
with  relation  to  the  discussion  of  a  project  for  arming  the 
blacks.  There  were  some  friends  of  the  government  from  the 
border  states  who  were  very  timid  and  doubtful  about  the 
adoption  of  this  measure:  but  the  majority  of  the  House 
agreed  to  it ;  and  the  Senate  would  undoubtedly  have  done 
the  same,  had  not  the  committee  to  which  the  matter  was  re 
ferred  reported  that  the  President  already  had  the  power  to 
call  persons  of  African  descent  into  the  military  and  naval 
service,  by  an  act  passed  during  the  previous  session. 

The  same  antagonisms  were  exhibited  concerning  a  measure 
for  enrolling  and  drafting  the  militia  of  the  different  states,  so 
that  each  state  should  be  compelled  to  contribute  its  equitable 
quota,  the  troops  when  raised  to  be  under  the  control  of  the 
President.  The  absolute  necessity  of  this  measure  was  at 
tributable  partly  to  the  stage  at  which  the  war  had  arrived — 
when  the  surplus  population  was  all  in  the  army,  and  it  was 
essential  to  draw  upon  the  vital  resources  of  the  country — 
and  partly  to  party  feeling  and  party  policy.  Either  through 
the  failure  of  McClellan's  campaign,  or  the  effect  of  the  eman 
cipation  proclamation,  or  the  influence  of  both  together,  the 
administration  had  received  a  rebuke  through  the  autumn 
elections  of  1862.  This  had  greatly  encouraged  the  opposi 
tion,  who,  as  opponents  of  the  war,  or  as  most  unreliable 
friends  of  the  President's  war  policy,  so  conducted  their  coun 
sels  that  the  government  became  fearful  concerning  its  ability 
to  raise  men  for  the  campaign  of  1863.  Just  in  proportion 
to  the  treasonable  sympathies  of  the  members  of  the  Senate 
and  the  House,  did  they  oppose  the  measure.  The  bill  was 
finally  passed  and  approved ;  and  it  became  an  efficient  instru 
ment  in  the  hands  of  the  government  for  prosecuting  the  war. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  409 

It  contained  provisions  for  procuring  substitutes,  for  exemp 
tion  by  the  payment  of  three  hundred  dollars,  a  clause  defin 
ing  the  conditions  of  exemption,  &c. 

Much  of  the  session  was  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  meas 
ures  of  finance,  which  ended  in  giving  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  leave  to  borrow  nine  hundred  millions  of  dollars, 
bearing  six  per  cent  interest,  payable  in  not  less  than  ten  nor 
more  than  forty  years.  The  Secretary  was  authorized  to  issue 
four  hundred  millions  in  treasury  notes  bearing  interest,  and 
a  hundred  and  fifty  millions  without  interest.  To  meet  the 
immediate  necessities  of  the  army  and  navy,  especially  as  they 
related  to  debts  due  the  soldiers  and  sailors,  authority  was 
given  for  the  issue  of  one  hundred  millions  of  treasury  notes, 
before  the  leading  measures  of  finance  were  perfected. 

The  latter  measure  was  signed  by  the  President  at  once,  in 
order  that  the  soldiers  and  marines  might  have  their  due ;  but 
he  took  occasion,  in  a  special  message,  to  express  his  regret 
that  it  had  been  found  necessary  to  make  so  large  an  addi 
tional  issue  of  United  States  notes,  at  a  time  when  the  com 
bined  circulation  of  those  notes  and  the  notes  of  the  suspended 
banks  had  advanced  the  prices  of  everything  beyond  real 
values,  augmenting  the  cost  of  living,  to  the  injury  of  labor, 
and  the  cost  of  supplies,  to  the  injury  of  the  country.  "It 
seems  very  plain,"  he  said,  "that  continued  issues  of  United 
States  notes,  without  any  check  to  the  issues  of  suspended 
banks,  and  without  adequate  provision  for  the  raising  of  money 
by  loans,  and  for  funding  the  issues,  so  as  to  keep  them  within 
due  limits,  must  soon  produce  disastrous  consequences."  He 
had  already,  in  his  annual  message,  advocated  the  national  bank 
system  for  the  production  of  a  uniform  currency,  secured  by 
the  pledge  of  United  States  bonds,  thus  increasing  the  demand 
for  the  bonds.  A  bill  for  the  object  desired  was  passed  by 
small  majorities,  and  approved.  It  was  a  doubtful  measure,  and 
touched  a  great  many  selfish  and  corporate  interests,  carrying 
more  or  less  of  disturbance  into  the  various  financial  systems 
of  the  states ;  but  the  country  has  had  no  reason  to  find  fault 
with  its  results. 


410  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

•• 

Two  events  during  the  session  marked  the  beginning  of 
those  reconstructive  measures  which  were  destined  eventually 
to  embrace  all  the  members  of  the  old  Union.  "Western  Vir 
ginia,  loyal  from  the  first,  was  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a 
state ;  and  two  representatives  from  Louisiana  were  admitted 
to  the  'House,  under  the  representation,  on  the  part  of  the 
committee  to  which  their  application  was  referred,  that  they 
had  been  elected  in  accordance  with  the  constitutional  condi 
tions  and  provisions  of  that  state. 

When  Congress  adjourned,  it  left  the  Executive  strong  in 
all  the  powers  and  prerogatives  necessary  for  the  successful 
prosecution  of  the  war.  The  president's  hands  were  strength 
ened  by  competent  financial  provisions,  by  the  confirmation 
of  his  power  to  arrest  and  hold  suspicious  and  inimical  per 
sons,  and  by  authority  to  levy  upon  the  militia  of  the  states 
for  such  force  as  might  be  necessary  to  effect  the  purposes  of 
the  government.  His  efforts  for  measures  of  compensated 
emancipation  failed.  A  single  measure  concerning  Missouri 
miscarried  through  the  failure  of  the  House  to  confirm  the 
action  of  the  Senate. 

On  the  twenty-second  of  November,  1862,  two  months  after 
Mr.  Lincoln  issued  his  proclamation  suspending  the  privilege 
of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  the  opponents  of  the  government 
became  so  quiet  that  an  order  was  issued  from  the  War  Depart 
ment,  discharging  from  further  military  restraint  all  those  per 
sons  who  had  been  arrested  for  discouraging  volunteer  enlist 
ments,  opposing  the  draft,  or  otherwise  giving  aid  and  comfort 
to  the  enemy,  in  all  states  where  the  draft  had  been  effected,  or 
the  quota  of  volunteers  and  militia  had  been  furnished.  The 
order  also  released  persons  held  in  military  custody  who  had 
been  arrested  for  disloyalty  by  the  military  governors  of  rebel 
states,  on  giving  their  parole  to  do  no  act  of  hostility  against 
the  United  States.  They  had  the  liberty  to  live  under  mili 
tary  surveillance;  or  to  go  to  the  rebel  states,  not  to  return 
until  after  the  war,  or  until  they  should  be  permitted  to  do  so 
by  the  President.  The  suspension  of  the  writ,  and  the  acts 
which  accompanied  it,  accomplished  their  object  tempora- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  411 

rily;  but,  at  the  close  of  the  session  of  Congress,  in  March, 
the  more  malicious  of  the  malcontents  began  their  foul  work 
again.  Undoubtedly  the  country  was  tired  of  the  war;  and 
many  of  the  weaker  and  more  unreasoning  classes,  finding 
themselves  more  than  ever  in  the  hands  of  the  government  by 
the  legislation  of  the  winter,  lent  willing  ears  to  disloyal  pol 
iticians.  Agitation  against  the  war  was  revived.  The  people 
were  called  upon  to  mark  the  great  sacrifices  they  had  already 
uselessly  made;  the  war  was  declared  to  be  a  failure,  and 
peace  as  far  off  as  ever ;  and  the  country  was  adjured  to  de 
mand  a  cessation  of  the  coercive  policy. 

Among  the  most  pestilent  of  these  sympathizers  with  trait 
ors,  was  Clement  L.  Yallandigham  of  Ohio — a  person  who, 
as  member  of  Congress,  stump  politician  and  private  citizen, 
had  opposed  the  war  from  the  start.  In  Congress,  he  had 
steadily  voted  against  every  measure  instituted  by  the  govern 
ment  for  maintaining  the  integrity  of  the  nation  and  putting 
down  the  rebellion.  Not  a  step  did  the  President  take,  in  the 
execution  of  his  purpose,  that  Vallandigham  did  not  dispute. 
Indeed,  he  offered  in  the  House  resolutions  of  censure  for 
those  early  acts  of  the  President  in  calling  out  a  military 
force,  by  which  alone  Washington  was  saved  from  capture. 
His  language  in  the  House  had  been  so  bitter  and  disloyal 
that  the  feelings  of  every  friend  of  the  government  had  been 
outraged.  Going  home  from  Congress,  where  he  had  been 
engaged  in  his  foul  work,  he  entered  upon  a  canvass  of  his 
district,  denouncing  the  government,  and  maligning  its  mo 
tives.  The  tendency  of  his  malicious  utterances  was  to 
weaken  the  hands  of  the  Executive  in  its  great  work  of  sub 
duing  the  insurrection,  and  to  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
national  enemies. 

General  Burnside,  then  in  command  of  the  Department  of 
the  Ohio,  issued  an  order  (Number  38,)  announcing  that 
thereafter  all  persons  found  within  the  federal  lines  who 
should  commit  acts  for  the  benefit  of  the  enemy  would  be 
tried  as  spies  or  traitors ;  and,  if  convicted,  would  suffer  death. 
This  order,  the  demagogue  publicly  denounced;  and  then  he 


412  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

called  upon  the  people  to  resist  its  execution.  General  Burn- 
side  arrested  him  at  once,  and  ordered  him  to  be  tried  by  court- 
martial  at  Cincinnati.  On  the  fifth  of  May,  the  day  follow 
ing  his  arrest,  he  applied  to  the  United  States  Circuit  Court 
for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus;  and,  after  an  elaborate  argument 
from  his  counsel,  and  the  -reading  of  a  long  letter  from  Gen 
eral  Burnside  giving  the  reasons  for  his  arrest,  Judge  Leavitt 
decided  against  his  application,  giving  his  opinion  that  "The 
legality  of  the  arrest  depends  upon  the  extent  of  the  necessity 
for  making  it ;  and  that  was  to  be  determined  by  the  military 
commander."  Judge  Leavitt  dealt  with  the  case  nobly. 
"Those  who  live  under  the  protection  and  enjoy  the  blessings 
of  our  benignant  government,"  said  he,  "must  learn  that  they 
cannot  stab  its  vitals  with  impunity.  If  they  remain  with  us, 
while  they  are  not  of  us,  they  must  be  subject  to  such  a  course 
of  dealing  as  the  great  law  of  self-preservation  prescribes  and 
will  enforce."  Further,  he  said:  "I  confess  I  am  but  little 
moved  by  the  eloquent  appeals  of  those  who,  while  they  in 
dignantly  denounce  violation  of  personal  liberty,  look  with  no 
horror  upon  a  despotism  as  unmitigated  as  the  world  has  ever 
witnessed." 

On  the  following  day,  Vallandigham  had  his  trial,  was  con 
victed,  and  was  sentenced  to  confinement  in  some  fortress  of 
the  United  States,  to  be  designated  by  General  Burnside,  who 
approved  the  finding  of  the  court,  and  designated  Fort  "Warren 
as  his  prison.  The  President,  however,  modified^the  sentence, 
and  directed  that  the  convict  should  be  sent  within  the  rebel 
lines,  among  the  people  which  he  held  in  such  cordial  sympa 
thy,  with  the  direction  that  he  should  not  return  until  after 
the  termination  of  the  war.  The  man  thus  sent  to  his  own 
found  safe  conduct  through  the  rebel  states,  and  managed  to 
reach  Canada,  from  whose  territory  he  subsequently  emerged, 
without  waiting  for  the  termination  of  the  war,  and  without 
saying  to  the  President,  "By  your  leave." 

There  were  numbers  of  men  in  the  loyal  states  who  were 
quite  as  guilty  as  Mr.  Vallandigham,  even  if  less  bold  than 
fye.  These  took  alarm.  If  Mr.  Vallandigham  could  be  ar- 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  413 

rested  and  sent  within  the  rebel  lines  for  abusing  the  motives 
and  acts  of  the  government,  who,  that  sympathized  with  Mr. 
Yallandigham,  was  safe  ?  It  was  a  natural  and  pertinent  in 
quiry.  So  they  began  to  hold  public  meetings,  to  denounce 
the  government,  and  to  call  upon  the  President  to  reconsider 
his  act  in  Vallandigham's  case.  Governor  Seymour  of  New 
York  was  powerfully  exercised  in  the  matter,  and  wrote  a  very 
spirited  letter  to  one  of  these  meetings  held  in  Albany,  on  the 
sixteenth  of  May.  If  the  Ohio  demagogue  used  treasonable 
language,  it  is  hard  to  see  why  the  New  York  governor  did 
not.  The  sanction  of  the  act  by  which  Yallandigham  was 
sent  among  his  friends,  by  President  and  people,  was,  in  his 
opinion,  not  only  despotism  but  revolution.  He  almost  copied 
the  language  of  the  convict  himself.  Mr.  Vallandigham  had 
said  that  the  government  was  aiming  not  to  restore  the  Union, 
but  to  crush  out  liberty.  Governor  Seymour  said:  "The 
action  of  the  administration  will  determine,  in  the  minds  of 
more  than  one  half  of  the  people  in  the  loyal  states,  whether 
this  war  is  waged  to  put  down  rebellion  in  the  South,  or  de 
stroy  free  institutions  at  the  North." 

This  meeting  and  others  of  the  same  kind,  held  in  the  lead 
ing  cities  of  the  Union,  denounced  arbitrary  arrests  and  the 
suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  protested  against  Val 
landigham's  sentence,  and  called  upon  the  President  to  recall 
their  injured  friend  and  protege.  A  month  after  Yallandigham 
was  banished,  the  Democratic  State  Convention  of  Ohio  met, 
and,  by  almost  a  unanimous  vote,  nominated  him  as  their  can 
didate  for  governor,  and  Senator  Pugh,  his  legal  counsel,  as 
their  candidate  for  lieutenant  governor.  They  also  sent  a  com 
mittee  to  Washington  to  demand  of  the  President  the  recall 
of  their  candidate.  The  letter  which  they  bore  was  answered 
at  length  by  the  President ;  and  he  gave  the  supporters  of 
Mr.  Yallandigham  a  very  plain  talk.  He  told  them  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  facts  touching  Mr.  Vallandigham's  words 
and  influence,  in  opposition  to  those  means  which  the  govern 
ment  deemed  indispensable  to  its  own  preservation,  and*  then 
said :  "  Your  own  attitude,  therefore,  encourages  desertion,  re- 


414  LIFE    OF  ABRAHAM 

sistance  to  the  draft,  and  the  like,  because  it  teaches  those  who 
incline  to  desert  and  to  escape  the  draft,  to  believe  it  is  your 
purpose  to  protect  them."  He  told  them,  however,  that  the 
proceedings  in  Mr.  Vallandigham's  case  were  "for  preven 
tion,  not  for  punishment — an  injunction  to  stay  an  injury;" — 
and  that  the  modification  of  General  Burnside's  order  was 
made  as  a  less  disagreeable  mode  to  Mr.  Vallandigham  him 
self  of  securing  the  desired  prevention. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  never, 
of  his  own  motion,  have  arrested  the  greatly  over-rated  sub 
ject  of  these  discussions.  He  had  talked  as  badly  in  Wash 
ington  as  he  had  in  Ohio,  and  lost  no  opportunity  to  abuse 
the  President  himself;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  very  severely  let  him 
alone.  When,  therefore,  he  clandestinely  returned,  a  year 
afterwards,  and  fulminated  his  threats  against  the  government, 
in  case  he  should  be  arrested  in  any  way  except  by  officers  of 
the  civil  tribunals,  he  was  permitted  to  say  what  he  pleased. 
The  people  of  Ohio  had  already  decided  against  him  by  a 
majority  of  one  hundred  thousand  votes ;  and  he  had  lost  his 
power  for  harm,  except  where  he  might  choose  to  bestow  his 
friendship. 

To  the  resolutions  passed  by  the  Albany  meeting  of  which 
Hon.  Erastus  Corning  was  president,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  an 
elaborate  reply.  This  was  his  favorite  field.  He  had  got 
hold  of  a  case  to  argue ;  and  its  importance,  in  his  apprehen 
sion,  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  he  spent  more  time  and 
exhausted  more  pains  upon  this  paper  than  upon  any  other 
written  during  his  administration,  messages  included.  It  was 
intended  to  be  the  full  and  exhaustive  vindication  of  his  policy, 
upon  the  subjects  it  covered,  before  the  American  people ;  and 
the  American  people  so  regarded  it.  No  headway  could  be 
made  against  it,  and  no  serious  and  candid  attempt  was  made 
to  answer  it. 

These  pages  will  not  give'  space  to  the  entire  document,  or 
even  a  review  of  the  argument ;  but  some  of  its  illustrations 
may  "foe  cited  as  giving  its  drift  and  style.  In  arguing  the 
necessity  of  the  arrest  of  those  who  were  known  to  be  traitors, 


LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  415 

but  who  had  committed  no  overt  act  of  treason,  he  said :  "  Gen 
eral  John  C.  Breckinridge,  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  General 
Joseph  E.  Johnston,  General  John  B.  Magruder,  General 
William  B.  Preston,  General  Simon  B.  Buckner,  and  Com 
modore  Franklin  Buchanan,  now  occupying  the  very  highest 
places  in  the  rebel  war  service,  were  all  within  the  power  of 
the  government  since  the  war  began,  and  were  nearly  as  well 
known  to  be  traitors  then  as  now.  Unquestionably,  if  we 
had  seized  and  held  them,  the  insurgent  cause  would  be  much 
weaker.  But  no  one  of  them  had  committed  any  crime  de 
fined  in  the  law.  Every  one  of  them,  if  arrested,  would  have 
been  discharged  on  habeas  corpus,  were  the  writ  allowed  to 
operate.'  In  view  of  these  and  similar  cases,  I  think  the  time 
not  unlikely  to  come  when  I  shall  be  blamed  foz*  having  made 
too  few  arrests,  rather  than  too  many." 

Certainly  here  was  a  case  in  point ;  and  it  is  hard  to  see 
why  reasoning  that  applies  so  well  to  those  men  would  not 
apply  as  well  to  those  still  in  the  power  of  the  government, 
who  had  notoriously  so  opposed  the  war  as  to  hinder  that 
government  from  conquering  the  traitors  named.  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham  "was  not  arrested,"  he  said,  "because  he  was  damag 
ing  the  political  prospects  of  the  administration,  or  the  per 
sonal  interests  of  the  commanding  general;  but  because  he 
was  damaging  the  army,  upon  the  existence  and  vigor  of 
which  the  life  of  the  nation  depends."  Furthermore:  "Must 
I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier-boy,  who  deserts,  while  I  must 
not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  induces  him  to  desert? 
I  think  that,  in  such  a  case,  to  silence  the  agitator  and  save 
the  boy,  is  not  only  constitutional,  but  withal  a  great  mercy." 

The  Albany  meeting  had  spoken  to  Mr.  Lincoln  as  "  dem 
ocrats."  To  this  aspect  of  the  matter  he  paid  his  .addresses. 
He  would  have  prererred  to  meet  them  on  the  higher  platform 
of  "  American* citizens,"  at  such  a  time ;  but,  since  he  was  de 
nied  this  privilege,  he  comforted  himself  with  the  reflection 
that  all  democrats  did  not  believe  with  them.  General  Burn- 
side,  who  arrested  Mr.  Yallandigham,  was  a  democrat.  Judge 
Leavitt,  who  refused  to  release  him  on  th'e  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 


416  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

was  also  a  democrat  who  received  ^is  mantle  from  the  hands 
of  Jackson  himself;  and  speaking  of  Jackson  reminded  him 
of  an  incident  in  point :  "  After  the  battle  of  New  Orleans, 
and  while  the  fact  that  the  treaty  of  peace  had  been  concluded 
was  well  known  in  the  city,  but  before  official  knowledge  of 
it  had  arrived,  General  Jackson  still  maintained  martial  or 
military  law.  Now  that  it  could  be  said  the  war  was  over, 
the  clamor  against  martial  law,  which  had  existed  from  the 
first,  grew  more  furious.  Among  other  things,  a  Mr.  Loui- 
allier  published  a  denunciatory  newspaper  article.  General 
Jackson  arrested  him.  A  lawyer  by  the  name  of  Morel  pro 
cured  the  United  States  Judge  Hall  to  issue  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  to  relieve  Mr.  Louiallier.  General  Jackson  arrested 
both  the  lawyer  and  the  Judge.  A  Mr.  Hollander  ventured 
to  say  of  some  part  of  the  matter  that  it  was  a  '  dirty  trick.' 
General  Jackson  arrested  him.  When  the  officer  undertook 
to  serve  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  General  Jackson  took  it 
from  him,  and  sent  him  away  with  a  copy.  Holding  the 
Judge  in  custody  a  few  days,  the  General  sent  him  beyond 
the  limits  of  his  encampment,  and  set  him  at  liberty,  with  an 
order  to  remain  until  the  ratification  of  peace  should  be  regu 
larly  announced,  or  until  the  British  should  have  left  the 
southern  coast.  A  day  or  two  more  elapsed,  the  ratification 
of  a  treaty  of  peace  was  regularly  announced,  and  the  Judge 
and  others  were  fully  liberated.  A  few  days  more,  and  the 
Judge  called  General  Jackson  into  court,  and  fined  him  one 
thousand  dollars  for  having  arrested  him  and  the  others  named. 
The  General  paid  the  fine,  and  there  the  matter  rested  for 
nearly  thirty  years,  when  Congress  refunded  principal  and 
interest." 

Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  avoid  adding  that  Senator  Douglas, 
then  a  member  of  the  House,  was  a  prominent  advocate  of 
this  democratic  measure;  and  remarking:  "First,  that  we  had 
the  same  constitution  then  as  now;  second,  that  we  then  had 
a  case  of  invasion,  and  now  we  have  a  case  of  rebellion ;  and, 
third,  that  the  permanent  right  of  the  people  to  public  discus 
sion,  the  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  the  trial  by  jury, 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  417 

the  law  of  evidence,  and  the  habeas  corpus,  suffered  no  detri 
ment  whatever  by  that  conduct  of  General  Jackson,  or  its" 
subsequent  approval  by  the  American  Congress." 


To  obviate  an  objection  made  to  the  course  of  the  adminis 
tration,  in  permitting  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
to  be  suspended  at  the  pleasure  of  the  heads  of  military  de 
partments,  thus  delegating  the  authority,  Mr.  Lincoln,  by 
proclamation  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  September,  suspended 
the  writ  throughout  the  United  States. 

Under  the  enrollment  act,  passed  March  third,  a  draft  of 
militia  was  ordered  for  July,  and  was  effected  without  serious 
disturbance,  except  in  a  single  instance,  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  Great  efforts  had  been  made  by  interested  politicians, 
during  the  spring  and  summer,  to  make  certain  provisions  of 
the  act  odious  to  the  people,  especially  to  the  lower  and 
more  unreasoning  classes.  The  clause  exempting  from  con 
scription  on  the  payment  of  three  hundred  dollars,  was  rep 
resented  to  be  intended  for  the  benefit  of  the  rich ;  and  the 
bad  passions  of  the  mob  were  wrought  upon  in  various  ways. 
The  first  day  of  the  draft  in  New  York,  July  eleventh,  though 
attended  with  some  excitement,  witnessed  no  outbreak  or 
violent  opposition:  but  the  Sunday  that  intervened  between 
that  day  and  the  resumption  of  the  draft  on  the  thirteenth,  af 
forded  an  opportunity  for  organization :  and,  when  the  fateful 
wheels  started  again, -one  of  them  was  seized  by  a  mob,  and 
destroyed;  and  the  building  which  contained  it  was  fired. 
For  four  days  thereafter,  New  York  was  under  the  reign  of 
riot.  The  troops  were  all  away,  having  been  called  upon  to* 
resist  the  invasion  of  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania.  During 
this  fearful  period,  the  most  fiendish  outrages  were  visited 
upon  the  harmless  black  population  of  the  city,  houses  belong 
ing  to  prominent  supporters  of  the  government  were  sacked 
and  burned,  and  plunder  became  the  one  ruling  passion  of  all 
the  worst  inhabitants  of  the  city.  Those  who  had  led  on  the 
mob,  as  a  demonstration  against  the  draft,  soon  found  that 
27 


418  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

they  could  not  direct  the  whirlwind,  and  that  the  passions  they 
had  aroused  were  altogether  beyond  their  control.  Women 
and  children  of  the  lowest  classes  gave  free  rein  to  their  thiev 
ish  impulses;  and,  after  a  single  day  of  riot,  the  draft  was  for 
gotten  in  the  greed  for  spoil.  The  disgraceful  proceedings 
were  not  stayed  until  the  return  of  the  regiments  that  had 
been  sent  away. 

The  Governor  of  New  York,  friendly  neither  to  the  admin 
istration  nor  to  the  draft,  asked  for  a  postponement  of  the 
measure  of  conscription  until  volunteering  could  be  tried; 
and  he  complained  of  certain  inequalities  of  the  government 
requisitions  in  certain  districts  of  the  state.  Mr.  Lincoln  re 
plied,  temporarily  yielding  the  point  in  relation  to  four  dis 
tricts,  and  promising  a  careful  re-enrollment,  but  saying  that 
the  draft  must  be  proceeded  with.  The  Governor  wished  for 
delay,  also,  in  order  that  the  constitutionality  of  the  draft 
law  might  be  tried.  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  that  he  should  be 
willing  to  facilitate  the  bringing  of  the  law  before  the  Supreme 
Court,  but  he  could  not  consent  to  lose  the  time.  "We  are 

,  contending,"  said  he,  "  with  an  enemy  who,  as  I  understand, 
drives  every  able-bodied  man  he  can  reach  into  his  ranks,  very 
much  as  a  butcher  drives  bullocks  into  a  slaughter-pen.  No 
time  is  wasted,  no  argument  is  used.  This  produces  an  army 
which  will  soon  turn  upon  our  now  victorious  soldiers,  already 
in  the  field,  if  they  shall  not  be  sustained  by  recruits  as  they 
should  be.  It  produces  an  army  with  a  rapjdity  not  to  be 
matched  on  our  side,  if  we  first  waste  time  to  re-experiment 
with  the  volunteer  system,  already  deemed  by  Congress,  and 
palpably,  in  fact,  so  far  exhausted  as  to  be  inadequate ;  and 

•  then  more  time  to  obtain  a  court  decision  as  to  whether  a  law 
is  constitutional  which  requires  a  part  of  those  not  now 
in  the  service  to  go  to  the  aid  of  those  already  in  it;  and 
still  more  time  to  determine  with  absolute  certainty  that  we 
get  those  who  are  to  go  in  the  precisely  legal  proportion  to 
those  who  are  not  to  go."  The  Governor  was  still  in  trouble 
about  the  inequality  of  the  quotas  in  the  districts,  and  regret 
ted  that  the  President  would  not  suspend  the  draft.  The 


LIFE   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  419 

President  understood  his  duty,  and  did  not  misunderstand 
Governor  Seymour ;  and  the  draft  was  resumed  and  peacefully 
consummated,  through  measures  of  protection  instituted  by 
the  war  department. 

The  popularity  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  administration  had 
entirely  recovered  from  whatever  depressing  influence  the 
emancipation  policy  had  occasioned,  and  from  the  effects  of 
the  Peninsular  campaign.  His  determined  pursuit  of  duty, 
whatever  the  consequences  might  be  to  himself,  won  him 
friends  among  his  enemies.  The  spring  elections  of  1863 
showed  a  reaction  from  those  of  the  previous  autumn,  and  the 
fall  elections  confirmed  his  growing  popularity.  The  elections 
in  New  York  were  a  direct  and  decided  indorsement  of  the 
draft  in  that  state,  and,  in  the  same  degree,  a  condemnation  of 
those  who  had  opposed  it.  Ohio  decided  Mr.  Vallandigham's 
case  by  giving  a  tremendous  majority  on  the  side  of  the  gov 
ernment.  Pennsylvania  re-elected  Governor  Curtin  by  an 
unexpected  majority;  and  the  same  successes  occurred  in 
every  state,  with  the  single  exception  of  New  Jersey.  To 
Mr.  Lincoln,  who  watched  the  indications  of  the  public  feel 
ing  and  opinion  with  constant  anxiety,  these  events  brought 
great  relief  and  encouragement.  The  South  had  been  watch 
ing  for  outbreaks,  and  its  northern  friends  had  been  proph 
esying  them.  The  South  had  been  expecting  the  growth  of 
a  peace  party,  and  its  northern  friends  had  endeavored  to 
bring  one  into  the  field;  but  the  fall  elections  of  1863  crushed 
the  rebel  expectations ;  and  the  whole  North  was  regarded  by 
the  traitors  as  bound  to  the  fortunes  of  that  horrible  tyrant — 
that  blood-thirsty  boor — Abraham  Lincoln.  In  the  meantime, 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  made  great  progress  in  the  esteem  of  foreign 
governments  and  foreign  peoples,  of  which  he  deceived  abund 
ant  testimonials. 

Early  in  the  year,  the  working  men  of  Manchester,  Eng 
land,  sent  him  a  letter,  to  which  he  gave  a  grateful  and  cordial 
reply.  They,  although  greatly  suffering  in  consequence  of 
the  war,  sent  him  their  sympathy ;  and  in  his  reply,  he  said 
to  them:  "It  has  been  often  and  studiously  represented  that 


420  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  attempt  to  overthrow  this  government,  which  was  ouilt 
upon  the  foundation  of  human  rights,  and  to  substitute  for  it 
one  which  should  rest  exclusively  upon  the  basis  of  human 
slavery,  was  likely  to  obtain  the  favor  of  Europe.  Through 
the  action  of  our  disloyal  citizens,  the  working  men  of  Eu 
rope  have  been  subjected  to  severe  trial,  for  the  purpose  of 
forcing  their  sanction  to  that  attempt.  Under  these  circum 
stances,  I  cannot  but  regard  your  decisive  utterances  upon  the 
question  as  an  instance  of  sublime  Christian  heroism,  which 
has  not  been  surpassed  in  any  age,  or  in  any  country.  *  *  *  I 
do  not  doubt  that  the  sentiments  you  have  expressed  will  be 
sustained  by  your  great  nation;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  assuring  you  that  they  will  excite  ad 
miration,  esteem,  and  the  most  reciprocal  feelings  of  friendship 
among  the  American  people.'' 

In  a  letter  written  August  twenty-sixth,  to  James  C.  Conk- 
ling,  in  reply  to  an  invitation  to  attend  a  mass  meeting  of 
"unconditional  Union  men,"  to  be  held  at  his  old  home  in 
Springfield,  Illinois,  it  is  evident  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  hope 
ful  and  confident  of  results.  In  this  letter  he  treated  again 
of  the  subject  of  emancipation;  and  handled  the  clamorer  for 
peace,  the  enemies  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  the 
advocates  of  compromise,  with  most  admirable  skill.  The 
closing  paragraphs  are  peculiarly  keen,  clear  and  sparkling : 

"  You  say  that  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  Some  of  them  seem 
•willing  to  fight  for  you;  but  no  matter.  Fight  you,  then,  exclusively  to 
save  the  Union.  I  issued  the  Proclamation  on  purpose  to  aid  you  in 
saving  the  Union.  Whenever  you  shall  have  conquered  all  resistance 
to  the  Union,  if  I  shall  urge  you  to  continue  fighting,  it  will  be  an  apt 
time  then  for  you  to  declare  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  I 
thought  that,  in  your  struggle  for  the  Union,  to  whatever  extent  the 
negroes  should  cease  helping  the  enemy,  to  that  extent  it  weakened  the 
enemy  in  his  resistance  to  you.  Do  you  think  differently  ?  I  thought 
that  whatever  negroes  can  be  got  to  do  as  soldiers,  leaves  just  so  much 
less  for  white  soldiers  to  do  in  saving  the  Union.  Does  it  appear  other 
wise  to  you?  But  negroes,  like  other  people,  act  upon  motives.  Why 
should  they  do  anything  for  us,  if  we  will  do  nothing  for  them  ?  If 
they  stake  their  lives  for  us,  they  must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  421 

motive,  even  the  promise  of  freedom.  And  the  promise,  being  made, 
must  be  kept. 

"  The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters  again  goes  imvexed 
to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest  for  it;  nor  yet  wholly  to 
them.  Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New  England,  Empire,  Key 
stone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way  right  and  left.  The  sunny  South, 
too,  in  more  colors  than  one,  also  lent  a  helping  hand.  On  the  spot, 
their  part  of  the  history  was  jotted  down  in  black  and  white.  The  job 
was  a  great  national  one ;  and  let  none  be  slighted  who  bore  an  honora 
ble  part  in  it.  And  while  those  who  have  cleared  the  great  river  may 
well  be  proud,  even  that  is  not  all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that  anything  has 
been  more  bravely  and  well  done  than  at  Antietam,  Murfreesboro,  Get 
tysburg,  and  on  many  fields  of  less  note.  Nor  must  Uncle  Sam's  web- 
feet  be  forgotten.  At  all  the  watery  margins  they  have  been  present, 
not  only  on  the  deep  sea,  the  broad  bay,  and  the  rapid  river,  but  also 
up  the  narrow,  muddy  bayou,  and  wherever  the  ground  was  a  little 
damp  they  have  been  and  made  their  tracks.  Thanks  to  all.  For  the 
great  Republic — for  the  principle  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive — for  man's 
vast  future — thanks  to  all. 

"Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it  will  come  soon, 
and  come  to  stay;  and  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping  in  all  future 
time.  It  will  then  have  been  proved  that  among  freemen  there  can  be 
no  successful  appeal  from  the  ballot  to  the  bullet,  and  that  they  who 
take  such  appeal  are  sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost.  And 
there  will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember  that  with  silent  tongue, 
and  clinched  teeth,  and  steady  eye,  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they  have 
helped  mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation ;  while  I  fear  there  will 
be  some  white  ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant  heart  and  de 
ceitful  speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it." 

The  military  events  of  the  year  were  of  great  importance, 
and,  on  the  whole,  well  calculated  to  give  hope,  not  only  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  but  to  the  loyal  people  of  the  whole  country. 
After  the  battle  of  Fredericksburg,  in  December,  1862,  the 
army  of  the  Potomac  did  nothing  for  several  months.  Late 
in  April — General  Burnside  having  meantime  been  relieved, 
and  General  Hooker  placed  in  command — a  movement  was 
made  across  the  river,  and  the  battle  of  Chancellorsville  was 
fought,  which  resulted  in  the  retreat  of  our  army,  and  a  loss 
of  eighteen  thousand  men.  It  was  a  sad  beginning  of  the 
year's  operations,  and  was  followed  by  the  invasion  of  Mary 
land  and  Pennsylvania  by  the  whole  of  General  Lee's  forces. 


422  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  invasion  took  place  in  June ;  and  it  was  accomplished  so 
quickly,  so  easily,  and  by  so  great  a  force,  that  the  whole 
country  became  terribly  excited.  The  President  issued  a 
proclamation  calling  for  one  hundred  thousand  militia  to  assist 
in  driving  back  the  foe.  The  army  under  Hooker  crossed  the 
Potomac  at  about  the  same  time  with  the  army  of  Lee,  and 
both  entered  Maryland  together.  Here  General  Hooker  was 
relieved,  and  General  Meade  placed  in  command,  who,  finding 
the  enemy  advancing  toward  and  into  Pennsylvania,  pushed 
forward  with  his  army  to  dispute  the  movement.  On  the  first 
of  July,  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  in  Pennsylvania  began ;  and 
it  raged  with  terrific  energy  for  three  days.  It  was  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  and  terrible  battles  of  the  war.  On  the 
fifth  of  July,  the  enemy,  who  had  been  terribly  punished,  and 
saw  that  his  invasion  was  a  failure,  retreated,  and  was  pursued 
by  our  weary  forces  back  to  the  old  position  on  the  Kappa- 
hannock.  At  the  close  of  the  fighting  on  the  third,  it  was 
evident  that  the  enemy  was  whipped ;  and  the  President  an 
nounced  the  fact  on  the  fourth,  by  a  dispatch  sent  over  the 
whole  country,  stating  that  the  news  was  such  as  to  cover  the 
army  with  the  highest  honor,  and  to  promise  a  great  success  to 
the  cause  of  the  Union.  With  characteristic  reverence,  he 
closed  by  expressing  his  desire  that  on  that  day — the  anniver 
sary  of  the  national  independence — "  He  whose  will,  not  ours, 
should  ever  be  done,  be  everywhere  remembered,  and  rever 
enced  with  profoundest  gratitude."  Our  losses  in  this  battle, 
in  killed,  wounded  and  missing,  amounted  to  twenty-three 
thousand  men,  while  those  of  the  enemy  were  much  greater, 
leaving,  indeed,  fourteen  thousand  prisoners  in  our  hands. 
The  state  of  Pennsylvania,  with  considerate  liberality,  subse 
quently  purchased  a  piece  of  land  adjoining  the  cemetery  of 
the  town,  where  much  severe  fighting  took  place,  as  a  burial 
ground  for  the  loyal  dead  of  the  great  battle.  This  place  was 
dedicated  on  the  succeeding  nineteenth  of  November,  in  the 
presence  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  cabinet,  Hon.  Edward  Ev 
erett  delivering  the  formal  address  of  the  occasion.  The  brief 
remarks  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  though  brought  into  immediate  com- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN".  423 

V 

parison  with  the  elaborate  eloquence  of  the  venerable  Massa 
chusetts  orator,  were  very  effective,  and  betrayed  a  degree  of 
literary  ability  quite  unexpected  to  those  who  had  read  only 
his  formal  state  papers.  He  said : 

"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  upon  this 
continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  propo 
sition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great 
civil  war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and 
so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of 
that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final 
resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might 
live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But 
in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot 
hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled 
here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The 
world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  say  here;  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be 
dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to 
the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full 
measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall 
not  have  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new 
birth  of  freedom,  and  that  the  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

Did  Mr.  Everett  say  more  or  better  in  all  his  pages  than 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  these  lines  ?  Yet  they  were  written  after 
he  left  Washington,  and  during  a  brief  interval  of  leisure. 

The  Fourth  of  July  was  further  rendered  memorable  by  the 
surrender  of  the  city  of  Vicksburg — the  stronghold  of  the 
Mississippi  River — by  General  Pemberton  to  General  Grant, 
with  all  his  defenses  and  his  army  of  thirty  thousand  men. 
After  various  unsuccessful  operations,  beginning  with  the  year, 
contemplating  the  capture  of  this  city,  General  Grant  ran  by 
the  batteries  with  his  transports,  and  landed  far  down  the  river, 
to  attempt  the  approach  of  the  city  from  the  rear.  Fighting  all 
the  way,  and  winning  every  battle,  he  reached  Jackson,  and 
then  advanced  westward,  directly  upon  the  doomed  town. 
General  Pemberton,  in  the  endeavor  to  dispute  his  progress, 
lost  at  Baker's  Creek  four  thousand  men  and  twenty-nine 


424  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

* 

pieces  of  artillery.  On  the  banks  of  the  Big  Black,  the  en 
emy  gave  battle  again,  and  was  again  defeated,  with  a  loss  of 
nearly  three  thousand  men,  and  seventeen  pieces  of  artillery. 
Then  Pcmberton  fell  back  behind  his  defenses,  which  he  did 
not  leave  till,  on  the  national  anniversary,  he  and  his  army 
marched  forth  as  prisoners  of  war,  leaving  behind  them  more 
than  two  hundred  cannon,  and  seventy  thousand  stand  of 
small-arms.  Four  days  later,  Port  Hudson,  which  had  been 
closely  besieged  by  an  army  advancing  from  the  south,  under 
General  Banks,  surrendered  with  seven  thousand  prisoners 
and  fifty  cannon. 

Thus  was  the  confederacy  cut  in  twain ;  and  from  that  hour 
its  cause  was  doomed.  Not  a  life  was  lost  afterwards  that 
was  not  lost  in  the  destruction  and  defense  of  a  hopeless 
cause.  "The  Father  of  Waters,"  wrote  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  glad 
and  poetic  mood,  to  Mr.  Conkling,  "  again  goes  unvexed  to 
the  sea."  It  was  a  great  event,  and  one  which  might  well 
fill  the  heart  of  the  President  with  exultation. 

These  victories  gave  great  encouragement  to  the  loyal  peo 
ple  of  the  country;  and,  from  the  day  of  their  occurrence, 
there  was  but  little  doubt  among  them  of  the  final  triumph 
of  the  national  cause.  In  Washington,  there  were  great  rejoic 
ings  ;  and  of  course  there  was  a  popular  call  upon  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  who,  in  response  to  a  serenade,  came  out,  and  made  a 
brief  speech.  These  calls  were  not  occasions  in  which  he 
delighted,  and  it  was  honest  and  characteristic  for  him  to  say, 
in  beginning:  "I  am  very  glad  indeed  to  see  you  to-night, 
and  yet  I  will  not  say  I  thank  you  for  this  call ;  but  I  do  most 
sincerely  thank  Almighty  God  for  the  occasion  on  which  you 
have  called." 

Another  very  characteristic  utterance  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  in 
connection  -with  these  events,  was  a  letter  written  to  General 
Grant,  July  thirteenth,  in  which  he  took  occasion  to  acknowl 
edge  that  results  had  confirmed  the  General's  judgment  rather 
than  his  own : 

"My  Dear  General:  I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever  met  per 
sonally.  I  write  this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment  for  the  almost 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  425 

• 

inestimable  service  you  have  done  the  country.  I  write  to  say  a  word 
further.  When  you  first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I  thought 
you  should  do  what  you  finally  did — march  the  troops  across  the  neck, 
run  the  batteries  with  the  transports,  and  thus  go  below ;  and  I  never 
had  any  faith,  except  a  general  hope  that  you  knew  better  than  I,  that 
the  Yazoo  Pass  expedition  and  the  like  could  succeed.  When  you  got 
below,  and  took  Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf,  and  vicinity,  I  thought  you 
should  go  down  the  river  and  join  General  Banks;  and  when  you  turned 
northward,  east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  feared  it  was  a  mistake.  I  wish 
now  to  make  the  personal  acknowledgment  that  you  were  right  and  I 
was  wrong." 

The  President's  praise  of  General  Grant  was  the  voice  of 
the  country.  The  capture  of  Vicksburg,  with  its  prelimi 
nary  battles,  was  the  work  of  a  great  general,  and  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  feats  in  the  history  of  war.  The  country  felt 
that  it  had  one  man,  at  least,  who  was  not  only  thoroughly  in 
earnest,  but  who  was  the  master  of  his  profession. 

The  operations  in  the  west  were  pursued  with  various  for 
tunes  during  the  year;  but  with  final  results  wholly  in  our 
favor.  On  the  fifth  of  January,  a  battle  occurred  at  Mur- 
freesboro,  which  ended  in  the  federal  occupation  of  the  place, 
and  the  falling  back  of  the  enemy  to  Tullahoma,  where  he 
entrenched  himself.  On  the  twenty-fifth  of  June,  General 
Rosecrans  advanced,  and  made  an  attack,  driving  Bragg  and 
his  army  back  in  confusion.  Pursuit  was  made  as  far  as 
practicable,  and  Bragg  kept  up  his  retreat  until  he  reached 
Chattanooga.  Rosecrans  came  up  with  him  August  twenty- 
first,  and  then  Bragg  retired  again,  but,  after  receiving  rein 
forcements,  turned,  and,  on  September  nineteenth,  made  an 
attack  upon  our  army.  The  engagement  was  a  desperate 
one,  inflicting  severe  losses  upon  the  federal  forces;  but  the 
rebels  gained  no  permanent  advantages.  Burnside  at  Knoxville 
had  been  ordered  to  join  Rosecrans,  but  had  failed  to  do  so, 
and,  after  the  battle,  Longstreet's  corps  of  the  rebel  army  was 
sent  against  him,  while  the  enemy  held  his  main  force  at  or 
near  Chattanooga.  On  the  twenty-fifth  of  November,  Gen 
eral  Grant,  who,  having  finished  up  his  Vicksburg  job,  had 
assumed  command,  attacked  Bragg,  and  utterly  routed  him, 


426  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

crowding  him  back  into  Georgia.  Then  Grant  paid  his  re 
spects  to  Long-street,  who  was  besieging  Knoxville,  and  that 
General  made  safe  his  retreat  into  Virginia. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  prayed  for  all  these  successes,  re 
ferred  them  directly  and  at  once  to  the  favor  of  God.  His 
announcement  of  the  federal  success  at  Gettysburg  was  ac 
companied  by  a  call  upon  the  people  to  remember  and  rever 
ence  Him  with  profoundest  gratitude.  After  the  fall  of 
Yicksburg,  he  publicly  thanked  Almighty  God  for  the  event. 
On  the  fifteenth  of  July,  he  issued  a  proclamation,  setting 
apart  the  sixth  day  of  August  to  be  observed  as  a  day  for 
national  thanksgiving,  praise  and  prayer :  inviting  the  people 
to  "render  the  homage  due  to  the  Divine  Majesty,  for  the 
wonderful  things  he  has  done  in  the  nation's  behalf:  and  in 
voke  the  influences  of  his  Holy  Spirit  to  subdue  the  anger 
which  has  produced  and  so  long  sustained  a  needless  and  cruel 
rebellion;  to  change  the  hearts  of  the  insurgents;  to  guide 
the  counsels  of  the  government  with  wisdom  adequate  to  so 
great  a  national  emergency ;  and  to  visit  with  tender  care  and 
consolation,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  land, 
all  those  who,  through  the  vicissitudes  of  marches,  voyages, 
battles  and  sieges,  have  been  brought  to  suffer  in  mind,  body, 
or  estate  ;  and,  finally,  to  lead  the  whole  nation  through  paths 
of  repentance  and  submission  to  the  Divine  Will,  back  to  the 
perfect  enjoyment  of  union  and  fraternal  peace."  On  the 
third  of  October  he  issued  another  proclamation  of  thanks 
giving,  setting  apart  the  last  Thursday  of  November  as  the 
day  to  be  observed.  The  spirit  of  tender  piety  which  this 
document  breathed  in  every  part,  could  only  have  come  from 
a  heart  surcharged  with  that  spirit.  Still  again,  having  heard 
of  the  retreat  of  the  insurgent  forces  from  East  Tennessee,  he 
issued  a  dispatch  on  the  seventh  of  December,  recommending 
all  loyal  people,  on  the  receipt  of  the  information,  to  assemble 
at  their  places  of  worship,  "and  render  special  homage  and 
gratitude  to  Almighty  God  for  this  great  advancement  of  the 
national  cause." 

One  of  the  most  vexatious  events  of  the  year,  to  Mr.  Lin- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  427 

coin,  was  the  quarrel  among  his  friends  in  Missouri,  dating  as 
far  back  as  the  removal  of  General  Fremont,  and  not  frowned 
upon  by  that  General  at  its  inception.  An  order  of  General 
Halleck,  who  succeeded  General  Hunter  in  Missouri,  exclud 
ing  fugitive  slaves  from  his  lines,  though  issued  only  for  mili 
tary  reasons,  helped  on  the  discord.  Then  came  discussions 
and  action  concerning  emancipation,  the  parties  dividing  on 
the  issue  of  gradual  or  immediate  emancipation ;  and  this  was 
followed,  or  accompanied,  by  disagreement  between  the  com 
mander  of  the  federal  forces  and  Governor  Gamble,  controlling 
the  state  troops,  raised  originally  as  auxiliary  to  the  govern 
ment.  General  Curtis,  who  was  in  command  of  the  depart 
ment,  was  removed  because  he  and  Governor  Gamble  could 
not  agree,  and  not  because  he  had  done  any  wrong;  and 
General  Schofield  was  put  in  his  place.  This  offended  Gov 
ernor  Gamble's  enemies,  and  they  remonstrated.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
in  a  note  written  at  this  time,  said :  "  It  is  very  painful  to  me 
that  you,  in  Missouri,  cannot  or  will  not  settle  your  factional 
quarrel  among  yourselves.  I  have  been  tormented  with  it 
beyond  endurance  for  a  month,  by  both  sides.  Neither  side 
pays  the  least  respect  to  my  appeals  to  your  reason." 

General  Fremont's  friends  wanted  him  recalled,  and  desired 
him  to  be  military  governor,  setting  Governor  Gamble  aside. 
Deputations,  committees,  and  independent  partisans  visited 
Washington  to  "torment"  the  President  still  more.  Each 
carried  back  a  report,  and  made  the  most  of  it,  to  feed  the 
quarrel.  During  the  summer  of  1863,  the  public  feeling  came 
up  to  fever  heat.  Gradual  emancipationists  were  denounced 
as  traitors  by  the  radical  emancipation  party,  which  claimed 
to  represent  the  only  loyal  elements  of  the  state;  and,  of 
course,  gradual  emancipationists  retorted  the  charge,  and  as 
sumed  the  claim.  On  the  fifth  of  October,  the  President 
wrote  a  long  letter,  reviewing  the  whole  case,  in  his  own 
frank  and  lucid  way.  He  also  sent  a  letter  of  instruction  to 
General  Schofield,  in  which  he  directed  him  so  to  use  his 
power  as  "  to  compel  the  excited  people  there  to  let  one  an 
other  alone."  Neither  the  letter  nor  the  instructions  produced 


428  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  slightest  effect  in  quieting  the  political  agitation,  or  soften 
ing  the  personal  feeling  which  accompanied  it.  The  depart 
ment  was  subsequently  placed  under  the  command  of  General 
Bosecrans ;  and  the  quarrel  itself  died  out,  or  ceased  to  attract 
public  and  presidential  attention.  In  the  President's  letter  to 
General  Schofield,  at  the  time  of  his  appointment,  he  said  to 
him:  "If  both  factions  or  neither  abuse  you,  you  will  proba 
bly  be  about  right.  Beware  of  being  assailed  by  one  and 
praised  by  the  other."  Judged  by  his  own  rule  in  this  case, 
the  President  was  as  nearly  right  as  he  could  be,  for  both  sides 
abused  him  thoroughly.  Let  it  be  said,  however,  to  their 
credit,  that,  at  the  succeeding  presidential  election,  both  sup 
ported  him,  and  contributed  to  his  triumph. 


CHAPTEK   XXV. 

THE  pen  has  been  so  busy  with  the  record  of  the  great  na 
tional  events  with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  directly  concerned, 
that  no  space  has  been  found  for  entering  the  White  House, 
and  witnessing  the  kind  of  life  that  was  lived  there.  The 
closing  paragraphs  of  the  last  chapter  will  give  an  intimation  of 
some  of  the  perplexities  that  attended  Mr.  Lincoln's  daily  ex 
perience.  More  than  any  of  his  predecessors  was  he  regarded 
as  the  father  of  his  people.  He  was  so  accessible  that  they 
came  to  him  with  all  their  troubles,  from  the  representatives 
of  the  factions  in  Missouri,  to  the  old  woman  who  applied  to 
him  to  have  a  sum  of  money  reserved  from  the  wages  of  a 
clerk  in  one  of  the  departments,  that  he  might  pay  her  bill 
for  board.  Every  man  seemed  to  think  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
could  settle  his  little  difficulty,  or  provide  for  his  little  want, 
whatever  it  might  be.  It  was  the  story  of  his  younger  life 
re-enacted.  He  had  always  been  a  reconciler  of  difficulties 
between  men ;  and  he  remarked,  while  in  the  presidential  chair, 
that  it  seemed  as  if  he  was  regarded  as  a  police  justice,  before 
whom  all  the  petty  troubles  of  men  were  brought  for  ad 
justment. 

In  one  matter — and  that  an  important  one — he  differed  from 
all  who  had  preceded  him  in  his  office.  Such  an  affair  as  a 
genuine  cabinet  consultation  hardly  occurred  during  his  ad 
ministration.  His  heads  of  departments  were  heads  of  de 
partments  indeed.  He  intended  that  they  should  do  the  work 
of  their  special  office,  and  that  they  should  be  held  responsible 


430  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

for  it.  The  affairs  of  state  were  managed  by  Mr.  Seward, 
and  not  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  Treasury  was  almost  as  much 
in  the  hands  of-  Mr.  Chase,  during  his  occupation  of  office,  as 
if  he  were  irresponsible  to  the  head  of  the  government.  The 
same  fact  held  concerning  all  the  other  secretaries.  He  was 
more  intimate  with  the  Secretary  of  War,  probably,  than 
with  any  other  member  of  the  cabinet,  because  operations  in 
the  field  were  the  leading  affairs  of  interest  and  importance ; 
and  it  is  probable,  also,  that  his  influence  was  more  felt  in  the 
war  office  than  in  any  other  of  the  departments.  Mr.  Chase 
has  said  that  he  never  attended  a  meeting  of  the  cabinet 
without  taking  with  him  the  figures  that  showed  the  exact 
condition  of  the  Treasury  at  the  time,  and  that,  during  the 
whole  of  his  official  life,  he  was  not  once  called  upon  to  show 
these  figures.  Mr.  Lincoln  contented  himself  with  such 
knowledge  as  he  gained  in  a  general  way  concerning  the  af 
fairs  entrusted  to  him.  The  tenacity  with  which  he  clung  to 
his  chosen  advisers  and  official  family,  throughout  all  the  at 
tempts  of  politicians  and  the  public  to  unseat  them,  was  re 
markable;  and  illustrated  not  only  the  faithfulness  of  his 
friendship  but  the  inflexibleness  of  his  will. 

If  any  action  was  ever  taken  by  one  of  his  secretaries  that 
seemed  to  him  ill-advised,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  interfere ;  but, 
sitting  in  his  place,  and  performing  what  seemed  to  him  to  be 
his  special  duties,  he  intended  that  his  associates  in  the  gov 
ernment  should  sit  in  their  places,  and  perform  their  duties ; 
and  he  left  them  free  to  win  such  honor  as  they  could,  by  the 
administration  of  the  affairs  of  their  respective  departments. 

The  first  three  years  of  the  war,  with  all  their  excitements, 
responsibilities  and  anxieties,  produced  a  powerful  effect  upon 
his  physical  constitution.  He  entered  the  White  House,  a 
healthy  man,  with  a  frame  of  iron;  and,  without  indulgence 
in  a  single  debilitating  vice,  he  became  a  feeble  man,  weary 
and  worn  beyond  the  reach  of  rest.  The  tired  feeling  very 
rarely  left  him.  His  relief  was  in  story-telling,  in  books  of 
humor,  in  theatrical  representations,  and  in  music.  A  lady 
who  was,  for  a  time,  a  member  of  his  family,  related  to  the 


LIFE    OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  431 

writer  an  incident  touching  his  love  of  music  and  its  effect 
upon  him.  One  evening  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  attend  the 
opera.  He  was  very  tired,  and  quite  inclined  to  remain  at 
home;  but,  at  the  close  of  the  evening's  entertainment,  he 
declared  himself  so  much  rested  that  he  felt  as  if  he  could  go 
home  and  work  a  month.  Simple  heart-songs  pleased  him, 
however,  much  more  than  the  elaborate  music  of  the  opera. 
The  poetry  of  Burns,  and  the  class  of  verse  to  which  it  be 
longed,  were  subjects  of  his  special  admiration ;  and  the  music 
that  was  their  fitting  expression  was  to  him  the  most  delight 
ful  of  all. 

With  the  soldiers  who  were  fighting  the  battles  of  the 
country,  he  had  the  deepest  sympathy.  Whenever  he  was 
congratulated  upon  a  success  in  the  field,  he  never  failed  to 
allude  gratefully  to  the  noble  men  who  had  won  it.  The  trials 
of  these  men — their  sacrifices  of  comfort  and  health,  of  limb 
and  life — touched  him  with  a  sympathy  that  really  sapped  the 
foundations  of  his  constitution.  They  were  constantly  in  his 
thoughts ;  and  not  a  battle  was  fought  to  whose  sacrifices  his 
own  vitality  did  not  contribute.  He  admired  the  fighting  man, 
and  looked  upon  him  as,  in  one  sense,  his  superior.  Although 
he  did  not  plead  guilty  to  the  weakness  of  moral  cowardice, 
he  felt  that  the  battle-field  was  a  fearful  place,  from  which, 
unaided  by  its  special  inspirations,  he  should  run.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  give  himself  credit  for  the  physical 
courage  which  he  really  possessed,  though  he  had  probably 
grown  timid  with  his  failing  strength. 

This  sympathy  with  the  soldiers  he  manifested  in  many 
ways,  and  in  none  more  than  in  his  treatment  of  their  offenses 
against  military  law.  In  a  letter  to  the  author,  a  personal 
friend  of  the  President  says :  "  I  called  on  him  one  day  in  the 
early  part  of  the  war.  He  had  just  written  a  pardon  for  a 
young  man  who  had  been  sentenced  to  be  shot,  for  sleeping 
at  his  post,  as  a  sentinel.  He  remarked  as  he  read  it  to  me : 
'I  could  not  think  of  going  into  eternity  with  the  blood  of 
the  poor  young  man  on  my  skirts.'  Then  he  added:  'It  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  boy,  raised  on  a  farm,  probably 


432  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

in  the  habit  of  going  to  bed  at  dark,  should,  when  required 
to  watch,  fall  asleep ;  and  I  cannot  consent  to  shoot  him  for 
such  an  act.' "  This  story,  with  its  moral,  is  made  complete 
by  Rev.  Newman  Hall  of  London,  who,  in  a  sermon  preached 
after  and  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's  death,  says  that  the  dead  body 
of  this  youth  was  found  among  the  slain  on  the  field  of  Fred- 
ericksburg,  wearing  next  his  heart  a  photograph  of  his  pre 
server,  beneath  which  the  grateful  fellow  had  written,  "  God 
bless  President  Lincoln!"  From  the  same  sermon,  another 
anecdote  is  gleaned,  of  a  similar  character,  which  is  evidently 
authentic.  An  officer  of  the  army,  in  conversation  with  the 
preacher,  said:  "The  first  week  of  my  command,  there  were 
twenty-four  deserters  sentenced  by  court  martial  to  be  shot , 
and  the  warrants  for  their  execution  were  sent  to  the  Presi 
dent  to  be  signed.  He  refused.  I  went  to  Washington,  and 

O  O  ' 

had  an  interview.  I  said:  'Mr.  President,  unless  these  men 
are  made  an  example  of,  the  army  itself  is  in  danger.  Mercy 
to  the  few  is  cruelty  to  the  many.'  He  replied:  'Mr.  General, 
there  are  already  too  many  weeping  widows  in  the  United 
States.  For  God's  sake,  do  n't  ask  me  to  add  to  the  number, 
for  I  won't  do  it.' " 

Whole  chapters  might  be  occupied  by  the  record  of  such 
incidents  as  these.  The  woe  that  the  war  brought  upon  the 
people  kept  his  sympathetic  heart  always  bleeding.  One  of 
the  last  acts  of  his  official  life  was  the  granting  of  a  pardon  for 
a  military  offense.  A  friend  from  Illinois  called  to  plead  for 
the  life  of  a  neighbor — a  soldier  who  was  on  his  way  with  his 
regiment  through  Washington,  and,  falling  out  of  the  ranks, 
entered  a  drinking  saloon,  was  overcome  with  liquor,  and 
failed  to  join  his  regiment  before  it  left  the  city.  He  was 
arrested  for  desertion,  and  sentenced  to  be  shot.  The  soldier's 
friend  found  Mr.  Lincoln  with  a  table  before  him  literally 
covered  with  documents,  which  were  all  to  be  signed  by  him. 
There  was  not  room  enough  on  the  table  to  hold  the  paper 
for  a  pardon.  Mr.  Lincoln  heard  the  explanation  of  the  case, 
and  remarked :  "  Well,  I  think  the  boy  can  do  us  more  good 
above  ground  than  under  ground;"  and  then  he  proceeded  to 


LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  433 

another  table  to  write  his  pardon.  Afterwards,  laughingly 
regarding  the  table  from  which  the  mass  of  papers  had  driven 
him,  he  said :  "  By  the  way,  do  you  know  how  the  Patago- 
nians  eat  oysters  ?  They  open  them,  and  throw  the  shells  out 
of  the  window,  till  the  pile  gets  higher  than  the  house,  and 
then  they  move ! "  He  could  not  omit  his  "little  story,"  even 
in  a  case  of  life  and  death. 

There  never  lived  a  man  more  considerate  of  human  weak 
ness  than  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  always  found  so  many  apol- 
o^ies  for  the  sins  of  others  that  he  could  cherish  no  resentments 

o 

against  them,  even  when  those  sins  were  maliciously  committed 

against  himself.     When  his  friends  went  to  him  with  the  re- 

t5 

marks  of  ill-natured  and  inimical  persons,  he  preferred  not  to 
have  them  repeated,  and  turned  off  his  indignant  informers 
with  a  story,  or  the  remark :  "  I  guess  we  won't  talk  about 
that  now."  He  never  read  the  public  abuse  of  himself  in 
the  newspapers ;  and  of  one  of  the  most  virulent  attacks  upon 
him  he  simply  remarked  that  it  was  "ill-timed."  Of  one  of 
his  bitter  political  enemies,  he  said :  "  I ' ve  been  told  that  in 
sanity  is  hereditary  in  his  family,  and  I  think  we  will  admit 
the  plea  in  his  case."  Charity,  pity,  mercy,  sympathy — these 
were  virtues  which  reigned  in  the  "White  House  during  Mr. 
Lincoln's  occupation  of  it. 

Yet  Mr.  Lincoln  could  be  severe.  Toward  crimes  result 
ing  from  sudden  anger,  or  untoward  circumstances  and  sharp 
temptations, — the  long  catalogue  of  vices  growing  out  of  hu 
man  weakness, — toward  these,  he  was  always  lenient ;  but  to 
ward  a  cool,  calculating  crime  against  the  race,  or  any  member 
of  it,  from  ambitious  or  mercenary  motives,  he  was  severe. 
The  systematic,  heartless  oppression  of  one  man  by  another 
man,  always  aroused  his  indignation  to  the  highest  pitch.  An 
incident  occurred  soon  after  his  inauguration  which  forcibly 
illustrates  this  point.  Hon.  John  B.  Alley  of  Lynn,  Massa 
chusetts,  was  made  the  bearer  to  the  President  of  a  petition 
for  pardon,  by  a  person  confined  in  the  Newburyport  jail  for 
being  engaged  in  the  slave-trade.  He  had  been  sentenced  to 
five  years'  imprisonment,  and  the  payment  of  a  fine  of  one 
28 


434  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

thousand  dollars.  The  petition  was  accompanied  by  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Alley,  in  which  the  prisoner  acknowledged  his  guilt 
and  the  justice  of  his  sentence.  He  was  very  penitent, — at 
least,  on  paper, — and  had  received  the  full  measure  of  his 
punishment,  so  far  as  it  related  to  the  term  of  his  imprison 
ment;  but  he  was  still  held  because  he  could  not  pay  his  fine. 
Mr.  Alley  read  the  letter  to  the  President,  who  was  much 
moved  by  its  pathetic  appeals ;  and  when  he  had  himself  read 
the  petition,  he  looked  up,  and  said:  "My  friend,  that  is  a 
very  touching  appeal  to  our  feelings.  You  know  my  weak 
ness  is  to  be,  if  possible,  too  easily  moved  by  appeals  for  mercy , 
and,  if  this  man  were  guilty  of  the  foulest  murder  that  the 
arm  of  man  could  perpetrate,  I  might  forgive  him  on  such  an 
appeal ;  but  the  man  who  could  go  to  Africa,  and  rob  her  of 
her  children,  and  sell  them  into  interminable  bondage,  with 
no  other  motive  than  that  which  is  furnished  by  dollars  and 
cents,  is  so  much  worse  than  the  most  depraved  murderer, 
that  he  can  never  receive  pardon  at  my  hands.  No!  He 
may  rot  in  jail  before  he  shah1  have  liberty  by  any  act  of  mine." 
A  sudden  crime,  committed  under  strong  temptation,  was  ve 
nial  in  his  eyes,  on  evidence  of  repentance ;  but  the  calculating, 
mercenary  crime  of  man-stealing  and  man-selling,  with  all  the 
cruelties  that  are  essential  accompaniments  of  the  business, 
could  win  from  him,  as  an  officer  of  the  people,  no  pardon. 

Two  ladies,  wives  of  rebel  officers  imprisoned  on  Johnson's 
Island,  applied  for  their  release,  with  great  importunity,  one 
of  them  urging  that  her  husband  was  a  very  religious  man. 
As  he  granted  their  request,  he  said  to  the  lady  who  had 
testified  to  her  husband  s  religion:  "You  say  your  husband 
is  a  religious  man :  tell  him,  when  you  meet  him,  that  I  say  I 
am  not  much  of  a  judge  of  religion;  but  that,  in  my  opinion, 
the  religion  that  sets  men  to  rebel  and  fight  against  their  gov 
ernment,  because,  as  they  think,  that  government  does  not 
sufficiently  help  some  men  to  eat  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
other  men's  faces,  is  not  the  sort  of  religion  upon  which  men 
can  get  to  heaven." 

Certainly  Mr.  Lincoln's  religion  was  very  different  from 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  435 

this.  It  was  one  which  sympathized  with  all  human  sorrow ; 
which  lifted,  so  far  as  it  had  the  power,  the  burden  from  the 
oppressed ;  which  let  the  prisoner  go  free ;  and  which  called 
daily  for  supplies  of  strength  and  wisdom  from  the  divine 
fountains.  He  grew  more  religious  with  every  passing  year 
of  his  official  life.  The  tender  piety  that  breathed  in  some 
of  his  later  state  papers  is  unexampled  in  any  of  the  utter 
ances  of  his  predecessors.  In  all  the  great  emergencies  of 
his  closing  years,  his  reliance  upon  divine  guidance  and  assist 
ance  was  often  extremely  touching.  "I  have  been  driven 
many  times  to  my  knees,"  he  once  remarked,  "by  the  over 
whelming  conviction  that  I  had  no  where  else  to  go.  My 
own  wisdom  and  that  of  all  about  me  seemed  insufficient  for 
that  day."  On  another  occasion,  when  told  that  he  was  daily 
remembered  in  the  prayers  of  those  who  prayed,  he  said  that  he 
had  been  a  good  deal  helped  by  the  thought ;  and  then  he  added 
with  much  solemnity:  "I  should  be  the  most  presumptuous 
blockhead  upon  this  footstool,  if  I  for  one  day  thought  that 
I  could  discharge  the  duties  which  have  come  upon  me  since  I 
came  into  this  place,  without  the  aid  and  enlightenment  of  One 
who  is  wiser  and  stronger  than  all  others."  He  felt,  he  said, 
that  he  should  leave  Washington  a  better  man  if  not  a  wiser, 
from  having  learned  what  a  very  poor  sort  of  man  he  was. 
He  always  remained  shy  in  the  exposure  of  his  religious  ex 
periences,  but  those  around  him  caught  golden  glimpses  of  a 
beautiful  Christian  character.  With  failing  strength  and 
constant  weariness,  the  even  temper  of  the  man  sometimes 
gave  way,  while  his  frequent  experience  of  the  faithlessness 
and  cupidity  of  men  made  him  at  last  distrustful  of  those 
who  approached  him. 

In  February,  1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  visited  by  severe  af 
fliction  in  the  death  of  his  beautiful  son  Willie,  and  the  ex 
treme  sickness  of  Thomas,  familiarly  called  "Tad."  This  was 
a  new  burden ;  and  the  visitation  which,  in  his  firm  faith  in 
Providence,  he  regarded  as  providential,  was  also  inexplicable. 
Why  should  he,  with  so  many  burdens  upon  him,  and  with 
such  necessity  for  solace  in  his  home  and  his  affections,  be 


436  LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

brought  into  so  tender  a  trial?  It  was  to  him  a  trial  of  faith, 
indeed.  A  Christian  lady  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  officia 
ting  as  nurse  in  one  of  the  hospitals,  came  in  to  attend  the  sick 
children.  She  reports  that  Mr.  Lincoln  watched  with  her 
about  the  bedside  of  the  sick  ones,  and  that  he  often  walked 
the  room,  saying  sadly :  "  This  is  the  hardest  trial  of  my  life ; 
why  is  it?  Why  is  it?"  In  the  course  of  conversations 
with  her,  he  questioned  her  concerning  her  situation.  She 
told  him  she  was  a  widow,  and  that  her  husband  and  two 
children  were  in  Heaven ;  and  added  that  she  saw  the  hand 
of  God  in  it  all,  and  that  she  had  never  loved  him  so  much 
before  as  she  had  since  her  affliction.  "How  is  that  brought 

O 

about?"  inquired  Mr.  Lincoln.  "  Simply  by  trusting  in  God, 
and  feeling  that  he  does  all  things  well,"  she  replied.  "Did 
you  submit  fully  under  the  first  loss?"  he  asked.  "No,"  she 
answered,  "not  wholly;  but,  as  blow  came  upon  blow,  and 
all  was  taken,  I  could  and  did  submit,  and  was  very  happy." 
He  responded:  "I  am  glad  to  hear  you  say  that.  Your  ex 
perience  will  help  me  to  bear  my  afflictions." 

On  being  assured  that  many  Christians  were  praying  for 
him  on  the  morning  of  the  funeral,  he  wiped  away  the  tears 
that  sprang  in  his  eyes,  and  said:  "I  am  glad  to  hear  that. 
I  want  them  to  pray  for  me.  I  need  their  prayers."  As  he 
was  going  out  to  the  burial,  the  good  lady  expressed  her  sym 
pathy  with  him.  He  thanked  her  gently,  and  said:  "I  will 
try  to  go  to  God  with  my  sorrows."  A  few  days  afterward, 
she  asked  him  if  he  could  trust  God.  He  replied :  "  I  think 
I  can,  and  I  will  try.  I  wish  I  had  that  childlike  faith  you 
speak  of,  and  I  trust  He  will  give  it  to  me."  And  then  he 
spoke  of  his  mother,  whom  so  many  years  before  he  had  com 
mitted  to  the  dust  among  the  wilds  of  Indiana.  In  this 
hour  of  his  great  trial,  the  memory  of  her  who  had  held  him 
upon  her  bosom,  and  soothed  his  childish  griefs,  came  back  to 
him  with  tenderest  recollections.  "I  remember  her  prayers," 
said  he,  "and  they  have  always  followed  me.  They  have 
clung  to  me  all  my  life." 

This  lady  was  with  the  President  on  subsequent  occasions. 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  437 

After  the  second  defeat  at  Bull  Run,  lie  appeared  very  much 
distressed  about  the  number  of  killed  and  wounded,  and  said: 
"I  have  done  the  best  I  could.  I  have  asked  God  to  guide 
me,  and  now  I  must  leave  the  event  with  him."  On  another 
occasion,  having  been  made  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  a 
great  battle  was  in  progress,  at  a  distant  but  important  point, 
he  came  into-  the  room  where  the  lady  was  engaged  in  nursing 
a  member  of  the  family,  looking  worn  and  haggard,  and  say 
ing  that  he  was  so  anxious  that  he  could  eat  nothing.  The 
possibility  of  defeat  depressed  him  greatly;  but  the  lady  told 
him  he  must  trust,  and  that  he  could  at  least  pray.  "  Yes," 
said  he,  and  taking  up  a  Bible,  he  started  for  his  room.  Could 
all  the  people  of  the  nation  have  overheard  the  earnest  peti 
tion  that  went  up  from  that  inner  chamber,  as  it  reached  the 
ears  of  the  nurse,  they  would  have  fallen  upon  their  knees 
with  tearful  and  reverential  sympathy.  At  one  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  a  telegram  reached  him  announcing  a  Union  vic 
tory  ;  and  then  he  came  directly  to  the  room,  his  face  beaming 
with  joy,  saying :  "  Good  news !  Good  news !  The  victory  is 
ours,  and  God  is  good."  *'  Nothing  like  prayer,"  suggested 
tlie  pious  lady,  who  traced  a  direct  connection  between  the 
event  and  the  prayer  which  preceded  it."  "Yes  there  is,"  he 
replied — "praise  : — prayer  and  praise."  The  good  lady  who 
communicates  these  incidents  closes  them  with  the  words: 
"I  do  believe  he  was  a  true  Christian,  though  he  had  very 
little  confidence  in  himself." 

Mr.  Lincoln  always  manifested  a  strong  interest  in  the  pe 
culiar  work  of  the  Christian  Commission  in  the  army,  and  at 
tended  the  important  meetings  of  that  body  at  Washington. 
His  official  and  personal  approval  of  the  plan  of  this  charity 
was  one  of  the  greatest  encouragements  of  those  engaged  in 
the  work.  In  the  early  part  of  1864,  a  meeting  of  the  com 
mission  was  held,  at  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  deeply  inter 
ested  spectator.  He  was  particularly  moved  on  this  occasion 
by  the  remarks  of  Chaplain  McCabe,  just  released  from  Libby 
prison,  at  Kichmond,  who  described,  in  a  graphic  manner,  the 
scene  among  the  prisoners  on  the  reception  of  the  news  of  the 


438  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

national  victory  at  Gettysburg,  as  they  took  up  Mrs.  Howe's 
spirited  lyric,  beginning  with  the  line, 

"Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord, 

and  made  the  prison  walls  rock  with  the  melody.  The  Chap 
lain  sang  it  to  the  meeting,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  requested  its 
repetition.  That  was  a  song  that  he  could  appreciate ;  and  it 
stirred  him  like  a  trumpet. 

At  another  of  these  meetings,  he  was  greatly  interested  and 
amused  by  a  story  told  by  General  Fisk  of  Missouri.  The 
General  had  begun  his  military  life  as  a  Colonel ;  and,  when 
he  raised  his  regiment  in  Missouri,  he  proposed  to  his  men 
that  he  should  do  all  the  swearing  of  the  regiment.  They  as 
sented  ;  and  for  months  no  instance  was  known  of  the  violation 
of  the  promise.  The  Colonel  had  a  teamster  named  John 
Todd;  who,  as  roads  were  not  always  the  best,  had  some  diffi 
culty  in  commanding  his  temper  and  his  tongue.  John  hap 
pened  to  be  driving  a  mule-team  through  a  series  of  mud- 
holes  a  little  worse  than  usual,  when,  unable  to  restrain  him 
self  any  longer,  he  burst  forth  into  a  volley  of  energetic  oaths. 
The  Colonel  took  notice  of  the  offense,  and  brought  John  to 
an  account.  "John,"  said  he,  "didn't  you  promise  to  let  m$ 
do  all  the  swearing  of  the  regiment?"  "Yes,  I  did,  Col 
onel,"  he  replied,  "but  the  fact  was  the  swearing  had  to  be 
done  then,  or  not  at  all,  and  you  were  n't  there  to  do  it." 

Mr.  Lincoln  enjoyed  this  story  quite  as  much  as  he  did  the 
singing  of  the  previous  occasion,  and  gave  himself  up  to 
laughter  the  most  boisterous.  The  next  morning,  General 
Fisk  attended  the  reception  at  the  White  House ;  and  saw, 
waiting  in  the  ante-room,  a  poor  old  man  from  Tennessee. 
Sitting  down  beside  him,  he  inquired  his  errand ;  and  learned 
that  he  had  been  waiting  three  or  four  days  to  get  an  audi 
ence,  and  that  on  his  seeing  Mr.  Lincoln  probably  depended 
the  life  of  his  son,  who  was  under  sentence  of  death  for  some 
military  offense.  General  Fisk  wrote  his  case  in  outline  on  a 
card,  and  sent  it  in,  with  a  special  request  that  the  President 
would  see  the  man.  In  a  moment,  the  order  came ;  and  past 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  439 

senators,  governors  and  generals,  waiting  impatiently,  the  old 
man  went  into  the  President's  presence.  He  showed  Mr. 
Lincoln  his  papers ;  and  he,  on  taking  them,  said  he  would  look 
into  the  case,  and  give  him  the  result  on  the  following  day. 
The  old  man,  in  an  agony  of  apprehension,  looked  up  into  the 
President's  sympathetic  face,  and  actually  cried  out:  "To 
morrow  may  be  too  late !  My  son  is  under  sentence  of  death ! 
The  decision  ought  to  be  made  now!"  and  the  streaming 
tears  told  how  much  he  was  moved.  "  Come,"  said  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  "wait  a  bit,  and  I'll  tell  you  a  story;"  and  then  he  told 
the  old  man  General  Fisk's  story  about  the  swearing  driver ; 
and,  as  he  told  it,  the  old  man  forgot  his  boy,  and  both  the 
President  and  his  listener  had  a  hearty  laugh  together  at  its 
conclusion.  Then  he  wrote  a  few  words  which  the  old  man 
read,  and  in  which  he  found  new  occasion  for  tears ;  but  the 
tears  were  tears  of  joy,  for  the  words  saved  the  life  of  his  son. 
Only  a  few  months  before  Mr.  Lincoln  died,  he  was  waited 
upon  at  the  White  House  by  about  two  hundred  members  of 
the  commission,  who  had  been  holding  their  annual  meeting. 
The  chairman  of  the  commission,  George  H.  Stuart,  addressed 
a  few  words  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  speaking  of  the  debt  which  the 
country  owed  him.  "My  friends,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  in  reply, 
"you  owe  me  no  gratitude  for  what  I  have  done:  and  I — " 
and  here  he  hesitated,  and  the  long  arm  came  through  the 
air  awkwardly,  as  if  he  might  be  misunderstood  in  what  he 
was  going  to  say, — "and  I,  I  may  say,  owe  you  no  gratitude 
for  what  you  have  done;  just  as,  in  a  sense,  we  owe  no  grati 
tude  to  the  men  who  have  fought  our  battles  for  us.  I  trust 
that  this  has  all  been  for  us  a  work  of  duty ; "  and  at  the 
mention  of  that  word,  the  homely,  sad  face  was  irradiated 
with  the  light  of  a  divine  emotion.  Looking  around  for  en 
couragement  into  the  faces  of  the  eager  group,  he  then  pro 
ceeded  in  the  simplest  words  to  say  that  all  gratitude  was  due 
to  the  Great  Giver  of  all  good.  At  the  close  of  his  remarks, 
Mr.  Stuart,  who  cared  as  little  for  precedent  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself,  asked  him  if  he  had  any  objection,  then  and  there,  to 
a  word  of  prayer.  Quietly,  but  very  cordially,  as  if  he  were 


440  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

grateful  for  the  suggestion,  lie  assented;  and  Bishop  Janes 
offered  in  the  East  Boom  a  brief  and  fervent  petition.  It 
was  a  memorable  scene,  which  must  always  be  reverted  to 
with  interest  by  every  Christian  patriot. 

On  another  occasion,  when  a  number  of  the  members  of 
the  commission  were  holding  an  interview  with  the  President, 
Bev.  J.  T.  Duryea  of  New  York  referred  to  the  trust  that 
they  were  encouraged  to  repose  in  the  Providence  of  God, 
and  to  the  fact  that  appeal  was  so  constantly  made  to  it  in  the 
prayers  of  Christian  people  that  even  children  were  taught  to 
pray  for  the  President  in  their  simple  morning  and  evening 
petitions.  "  If  it  were  not  for  my  firm  belief  in  an  over-rul 
ing  Providence,"  responded  Mr.  Lincoln,  "it  would  be  diffi 
cult  for  me,  in  the  midst  of  such  complications  of  affairs,  to 
keep  my  reason  on  its  seat.  But  I  am  confident  that  the  Al 
mighty  has  his  plans,  and  will  work  them  out ;  and,  whether 
we  see  it  or  not,  they  will  be  the  wisest  and  best  for  us.  I 
have  always  taken  counsel  of  him,  and  referred  to  him  my 
plans,  and  have  never  adopted  a  course  of  proceeding  without 
being  assured,  as  far  as  I  could  be,  of  his  approbation.  To 
be  sure,  he  has  not  conformed  to  my  desires,  or  else  we  should 
have  been  out  of  our  trouble  long  ago.  On  the  other  hand, 
his  will  does  not  seem  to  agree  with  the  wish  of  our  enemy 
over  there  (pointing  across  the  Potomac).  He  stands  the 
judge  between  us,  and  we  ought  to  be  willing  to  accept  his 
decisions.  We  have  reason  to  anticipate  that  it  will  be  fa 
vorable  to  us,  for  our  cause  is  right."  It  was  during  this  in 
terview  that  the  fact  was  privately  communicated  to  a  mem 
ber  of  the  commission,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  habit  of 
spending  an  early  hour  each  day  in  prayer. 

It  was  during  this  interview,  also,  that,  on  some  allusion 
being  made  to  the  unfriendly  personal  criticisms  of  the  press, 
he  said:  "It  has  been  asserted  that  we  are  conducting  the 
present  administration  in  the  interest  of  a  party,  to  secure  a 
re-election.  It  is  said  that  appointments  in  the  army  are  made 
with  this  view,  and  that  the  removals  are  intended  to  put 
promising  rivals  out  of  the  way.  Now,  if  any  man  shows 


LIFE   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  441 

himself  to  be  able  to  save  the  country,  he  shall  have  my  hearty 
support.  If  he  wants  to  be  president,  he  ought  to  be,  and  I 
will  help  him.  The  charge  is  absurd.  What  matters  it  who 
is  chosen  the  next  president,  if  there  is  to  be  no  next  presi 
dency?  What  matters  it  who  is  appointed  pilot  for  the  next 
voyage,  if  the  ship  is  going  down  this  voyage?"  When  al 
lusion  was  made  to  the  carping  spirit  of  some  of  the  professed 
friends  of  the  government,  who,  distinguishing  between  the 
administration  and  the  government,  condemned  the  former 
while  pretending  to  defend  the  latter,  he  said:  "There  is  an 
important  sense  in  which  the  government  is  distinct  from  the 
administration.  One  is  perpetual,  the  other  is  temporary  and 
changeable.  A  man  may  be  loyal  to  his  government,  and  yet 
oppose  the  peculiar  principles  and  methods  of  the  administra 
tion.  I  should  regret  to  see  the  day  in  which  the  people  should 
cease  to  express  intelligent,  honest,  generous  criticism  upon 
the  policy  of  their  rulers.  It  is  true,  however,  that,  in  time  of 
great  peril,  the  distinction  ought  not  to  be  so  strongly  urged ; 
for  then  criticism  may  be  regarded  by  the  enemy  as  opposition, 
and  may  weaken  the  wisest  and  best  efforts  for  the  public 
safety.  If  there  ever  was  such  a  time,  it  seems  to  me  it  is 
now." 

An  illustration  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  interest  in  the  efforts  of 
religious  men,  is  found  in  his  treatment-  of  a  case  brought  be 
fore  him  by  Rev.  Mr.  Duryea,  whose  name  has  already  been 
mentioned.  Colonel  Loomis,  commandant  at  Fort  Columbus, 
on  Governor's  Island,  was  to  be  removed  because  he  had 
passed  the  legal  limit  of  age  for  active  service.  His  religious 
influence  w^as  so  powerful  that  the  Chaplain  of  the  post  ap 
pealed  to  Mr.  Duryea  to  use  his  influence  for  the  good  officer's 
retention  in  the  service.  Accordingly,  appeal  was  made  to 
the  President  for  that  object,  purely  on  religious  grounds. 
"What  does  Mr.  Duryea  know  of  military  matters?"  in 
quired  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  a  smile,  of  the  bearer  of  his  petition. 
^Nothing,"  replied  the  gentleman;  "and  he  makes  no  request 
on  military  considerations.  The  record  of  Colonel  Loomis  for 
fifty  years,  in  the  War  Department,  will  furnish  these.  He 


442  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

asks  simply  to  retain  the  influence  of  a  man  whose  Christian 
character  is  pure  and  consistent,  who  sustains  religious  exer 
cises  at  the  fort,  leads  a  weekly  prayer-meeting,  and  teaches 
a  Bible  class  in  the  Sabbath  School."  Mr.  Lincoln  replied: 
"That  is  his  highest  possible  recommendation.  Take  this  pe 
tition  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  with  my  approval."  The  re 
sult  was  the  retention  of  Colonel  Loomis  at  his  post,  until  his 
services  were  needed  in  important  court-martial  business. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  habits  at  the  White  House  were  as  simple  as 
they  were  at  his  old  home  in  Illinois.  He  never  alluded  to 
himself  as  "President,"  or  as  occupying  "the  Presidency." 
His  office,  he  always  designated  as  "this  place."  "Call  me 
Lincoln,"  said  he  to  a  friend, — "Mr.  President"  had  become 
so  very  tiresome  to  him.  "  If  you  see  a  newsboy  down  the 
street,  send  him  up  this  way,"  said  he  to  a  passenger,  as  he 
stood  waiting  for  the  morning  news  at  his  gate.  Friends 
cautioned  him  against  exposing  himself  so  openly  in  the  midst 
of  enemies ;  but  he  never  heeded  them.  He  frequently  walked 
the  streets  at  night,  entirely  unprotected ;  and  he  felt  any  check 
upon  his  free  movements  as  a  great  annoyance.  He  delighted 
to  see  his  familiar  western  friends ;  and  he  gave  them  always  a 
cordial  welcome.  He  met  them  on  the  old  footing,  and  fell 
at  once  into  the  accustomed  habits  of  talk  and  story-telling. 
An  old  acquaintance,  with  his  wife,  visited  Washington.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Lincoln  proposed  to  these  friends  a  ride  in  the  presi 
dential  carriage.  It  should  be  stated,  in  advance,  that  the 
two  men  had  probably  never  seen  each  other  with  gloves  on 
in  their  lives,  unless  when  they  were  used  as  protection  from 
the  cold.  The  question  of  each — Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  White 
House,  and  his  friend  at  the  hotel — was,  whether  he  should 
wear  gloves.  Of  course,  the  ladies  urged  gloves ;  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  only  put  his  in  his  pocket,  to  be  used  or  not,  accord 
ing  to  circumstances.  When  the  presidential  party  arrived 
at  the  hotel,  to  take  in  their  friends,  they  found  the  gentleman, 
overcome  by  his  wife's  persuasions,  very  handsomely  gloved. 
The  moment  he  took  his  seat,  he  began  to  draw  off  the  cling 
ing  kids,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  began  to  draw  his  on.  "  No !  no ! 


LIFE   OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  443 

no!"  protested  his  friend,  tugging  at  his  gloves;  "It  is  none 
of  my  doings :  put  up  your  gloves,  Mr.  Lincoln."  So  the 
two  old  friends  were  on  even  and  easy  terms,  and  had  their 
ride  after  their  old  fashion. 

Let  us  look  a  little  deeper  into  this  life  in  the  White  House. 
The  writer  has  before  him  a  private  letter  written  by  a  lady 
of  great  intelligence  and  the  keenest  powers  of  observation, 
from  which  he  has  the  liberty  to  draw  some  most  interesting 
materials,  illustrative  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mode  of  dealing  with 
men  and  women,  and  with  the  questions  which  were  presented 
to  him  for  decision.  They  will  illustrate  as  well  his  weak 
ness  as  his  strength ;  and  show,  better  than  any  direct  state 
ment,  how  the  duties  of  his  position  had  worn  upon  his  nerves 
and  his  temper.  The  lady  was  the  widow  of  one  who  had 
died  while  serving  the  soldiers  of  the  state  of  which  he  was 
the  Governor ;  and  she  had  taken  up  his  work  of  charity,  and 
pursued  it  from  the  time  of  his  death. 

The  lady  says  she  was  received  by  Mr.  Lincoln  after  a 
brief  delay.  He  was  alone,  in  a  medium-sized,  office-like 
room,  with  no  elegance  around  him,  and  no  elegance  in  him. 
He  was  plainly  clad  in  a  suit  of  black,  that  fitted  him  poorly ; 
and  was  sitting  in  a  folded-up  sort  of  way,  in  his  arm-chair. 
At  his  side  stood  a  high  writing-desk  and  table  combined; 
under  his  feet  was  a  simple  straw  matting;  and  around  him 
were  sofas  and  chairs,  covered  with  green  worsted.  Nothing 
more  unpretending  could  be  imagined.  As  she  entered,  his 
head  was  bent  forward,  his  chin  resting  on  his  breast,  and  his 
hand  holding  the  letter  she  had  sent  in.  He  made  a  feint 

O 

of  rising ;    and,  looking  out  from  under  his  eyebrows,  said 

inquiringly*:   "  Mrs. ?  "     Hastening  forward,  she  replied : 

"Yes,  and  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you,  Mr.  Lincoln."  He 
took  her  hand,  and  "hoped  she  was  well,"  but  gave  no  smile 
of  welcome.  She  had  come  on  business  which  interfered 
with  his  policy  and  plans ;  and  she  anxiously  read  his  face, 
full  of  its  lines  of  care  and  thought,  and  almost  stern  in 
its  expression.  He  motioned  her  to  a  chair;  and,  while  he  was 
reading  her  letter,  she  continued  the  perusal  of  his  features. 


444  LIFE    OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

After  he  had  finished,  he  looked  up,  ran  his  fingers  through 
his  slightly  silvered  brown  hair,  and  with  an  air  of  sad 
severity  said:  "Madam,  this  matter  of  northern  hospitals 
has  been  talked  of  a  great  deal,  and  I  thought  it  was  settled ; 
but  it  seems  this  is  not  the  case.  What  have  you  got 
to  say  about  it?"  "Simply  this,"  she  replied,  "that  many 
soldiers,  sick  in  our  western  army  on  the  Mississippi,  must 
have  northern  air,  or  die.  There  are  thousands  of  graves 
along  the  Mississippi  and  Yazoo,  for  which  the  government 
is  responsible — ignorantly,  undoubtedly;  but  this  ignorance 
must  not  continue.  If  you  will  permit  these  men  to  come 
North,  you,  will  have  ten  men  in  one  year  where  you  have 


got  one  now." 


Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  see  the  logic  of  this.  Shrugging  his 
shoulders,  and  smiling  in  his  peculiar,  quizzical  way,  he  said: 
"If  your  reasoning  wrere  correct,  your  argument  would  be  a 
good  one.  I  do  n't  see  how  sending  one  sick  man  North  is 
going  to  give  us  ten  well  ones."  The  lady  replied:  "You 
understand  me,  I  think."  "Yes,  yes,"  said  he,  "I  understand 
you;  but  if  they  go  North  they  will  desert,  and  where  is  the 
difference?"  Her  reply  was:  "Dead  men  cannot  fight,  and 
they  may  not  desert."  "A  fine  way  to  decimate  the  army!" 
exclaimed  the  President.  "We  should  never  get  a  man 
back — not  one — not  one."  "  Pardon  me,"  responded  the  lady, 
"but  I  believe  you  are  mistaken.  You  do  not  understand  our 
people.  They  are  as  true  and  as  loyal  to  the  government  as 
yourself.  The  loyalty  is  among  the  common  soldiers,  and 
they  are  the  chief  suiferers."  Almost  contemptuously  Mr. 
Lincoln  replied  :  "  This  is  your  opinion  !  " 

The  reader  will  see  in  this  exhibition  of  petulance,  evidence 
that  the  President  was  conscious  of  being  undermined  in  his 

predeterminations.  "Mrs.  ,"  said  he,  earnestly,  "How 

many  men  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  do  you  suppose  the 
government  was  paying  at  the  battle  of  Antietam  ?  and  how 
many  men  do  you  suppose  could  be  got  for  active  service  at 
that  time  ?  "  She  replied :  "  I  know  nothing  of  the  army  of 
the  Potomac,  except  that  it  has  made  some  noble  sacrifices." 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  445 

"Well,  but  give  a  guess,"  persisted  the  President.  "Indeed, 
I  cannot,"  was  her  answer.  He  threw  himself  awkwardly 
around  in  his  chair,  with  one  leg  over  the  arm,  and  spoke 
slowly:  "This  war  might  have  been  finished  at  that  time,  if 
every  man  had  been  in  his  place  who  was  able  to  be  there ; 
but  they  were  scattered  here  and  there  over  the  North — some 
on  furloughs,  and  in  one  way  and  another  gone,  so  that,  out 
of  one  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  men,  whom  the  gov 
ernment  was  paying,  only  eighty-three  thousand  could  be  got 
for  action.  The  consequences,  you  know,  proved  nearly  dis 
astrous."  The  President  paused  for  a  response,  and  it  came. 
"  It  was  very  sad ;  but  the  delinquents  were  certainly  not  in 
northern  hospitals,  nor  were  they  deserters  from  northern  hos 
pitals,  for  we  have  had  none :  so  your  argument  is  not  against 
them." 

The  President  appreciated  this  logic  thoroughly,  and  re 
plied  :  "  Well,  well ;  you  go  and  call  on  the  Secretary  of  War, 
and  see  what  he  says."  He  then  took  the  lady's  letter,  and 

wrote  on  the  back:  "Admit  Mrs.  at  once.     Listen  to 

what  she  says.  She  is  a  lady  of  intelligence,  and  talks  sense. 
A.  Lincoln."  "May  I  return  to  you,  Mr.  Lincoln?"  she  in 
quired.  "Certainly,"  said  he,  gently;  and  then  the  lady 
found  her  way  to  Mr.  Stanton's  office,  and  was  listened  to  and 
treated  with  great  respectfulness  and  kindness.  She  was  told 
by  the  Secretary  that  he  had  sent  the  Surgeon-general  to  New 
Orleans,  with  directions  to  come  up  the  river,  and  visit  all  the 

hospitals.     Mrs. had  no  faith  in  these  inspections,  and 

told  him  so — told  him,  further,  that  no  good  to  the  western 
soldiers  had  ever  resulted  from  them.  She  also  indicated  what 
she  believed  to  be  the  reasons  for  the  favorable  reports  from 
the  southern  hospitals,  that  had  uniformly  been  made.  "  I 
believe,"  said  she,  "that  it  is  because  the  medical  authorities 
know  that  the  heads  of  departments  are  opposed  to  establish 
ing  hospitals  so  far  from  army  lines,  and  report  accordingly. 
I  wish  this  could  be  over-ruled.  Can  nothing  be  done?" 
"  Nothing  until  the  Surgeon-general  returns,"  he  replied. 
Personally,  he  expressed  himself  in  favor  of  hospitals  in  every 


446  LIFE    Or   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

northern  state,  but  he  had  to  be  guided  by  the  medical  au 
thorities. 

She  bade  him  "  good  morning,"  and  returned  to  the  Presi 
dent.  No  one  was  waiting,  and  at  the  invitation  of  the  mes 
senger  she  passed  directly  into  the  President's  room.  She 
found  a  gentleman  engaged  in  conversation  with  the  President, 
but  neither  noticed  her  entrance.  Taking  a  seat  at  a  distance 
from  the  two  gentlemen,  she  waited  her  opportunity.  The 
visitor  handed  a  paper  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  looked  it  over 
carelessly,  and  said :  "  Yes,  that  is  a  sufficient  indorsement  for 
anybody:  what  do  you  want?"  The  reply  was  not  heard; 
but  the  promotion  of  some  person  in  the  army  was  strongly 
urged.  She  heard  the  sarcastic  words  from  the  applicant: 
"  I  see  there  are  no  vacancies  among  the  Brigadiers,  from  the 
fact  that  so  many  Colonels  are  commanding  brigades." 

At  this,  the  President  threw  himself  forward  in  his  chair 
in  such  a  way  as  to  expose  to  the  lady  the  most  curious,  com 
ical  expression  of  features  imaginable.  He  was  looking  the 
man  squarely  in  the  face ;  and,  with  one  hand  softly  patting 
the  other,  and  the  funny  look  pervading  every  line  of  his 
countenance,  he  said :  "  My  friend,  let  me  tell  you  something 
about  that.  You  are  a  farmer,  I  believe ;  if  not,  you  will  un 
derstand  me.  Suppose  you  had  a  large  cattle-yard,  full  of  all 
sorts  of  cattle — cows,  oxen  and  bulls, — and  you  kept  killing 
and  selling  and  disposing  of  your  cows  and  oxen,  in  one  way 
and  another,  taking  good  care  of  your  bulls.  By  and  by  you 
would  find  out  that  you  had  nothing  but  a  yard  full  of  old 
bulls,  good  for  nothing  under  heaven.  Now  it  will  be  just  so 
with  the  army,  if  I  do  n't  stop  making  Brigadier-generals." 

The  man  was  answered,  and  he  tried  to  laugh ;  but  the  ef 
fort  was  a  feeble  one.  Mr.  Lincoln  laughed,  however,  enough 
for  both  parties.  He  laughed  all  over,  and  laughed  his  vis 
itor  out  of  the  room. 

The  lady  stepped  forward ;  and,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  motioned 
her  to  a  chair,  he  inquired  what  the  Secretary  of  War  had 
said  to  her.  She  gave  him  a  full  account  of  the  interview, 
and  added :  "  I  have  nowhere  to  go  but  to  you."  He  replied, 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  447 

"  Mr.  Stanton  knows  there  is  an  acting  Surgeon-general  here, 
and  that  Hammond  will  not  return  these  two  months.  I  will 
see  the  Secretary  of  War  myself,  to-night ;  and  you  may  come 
again  in  the  morning."  He  then  dismissed  her  in  the  kindest 
manner  and  with  the  kindest  words. 

No  reader  can  doubt  that  from  this  moment  he  had  deter 
mined  to  grant  the  lady  her  request ;  and  this  is  to  be  remem 
bered  in  the  reading  of  the  interviews  which  followed ;  for  in 
these  interviews  occurred  a  strange  exhibition  of  his  penchant 
for  arguing  against  and  opposing  his  own  conclusions — in  this 
case  almost  with  temper — certainly  not  in  the  most  amiable 
manner. 

In  the  morning,  the  lady  returned,  full  of  hope,  expecting 
to  be  greeted  by  the  same  genial  face  and  cordial  manner  with 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  dismissed  her.  The  President  raised 
his  eyes  as  she  entered  his  room,  said  "  good  morning,"  and 
pointed  to  a  chair.  He  was  evidently  annoyed  at  something 
which  had  occurred  during  some  previous  conversation  of  the 
morning,  and  waited  for  her  to  speak.  She  waited  for  him. 
"Well?"  said  he,  after  a  minute  of  delay.  "Well?"  replied 
his  visitor.  He  looked  up  under  his  eyebrows,  a  little  start 
led,  and  inquired:  "Have  you  nothing  to  say?"  "Nothing," 
she  replied,  "until  I  hear  your  decision.  Have  you  decided? 
You  know  you  bade  me  come  this  morning."  "No,  I  have  not 
decided ;  and  I  believe  this  idea  of  northern  hospitals  is  a  great 
humbug,  and  I  am  tired  of  hearing  about  it."  The  lady  pitied 
him  in  his  weak  and  irritable  moed,  and  said :  "  I  regret  to 
add  a  feather's  weight  to  your  already  overwhelming  care  and 
responsibility.  I  would  rather  have  stayed  at  home."  With 
a  feeble  smile,  he  responded:  "I  wish  you  had."  She  was 
earnest,  and  replied :  "  Nothing  would  have  given  me  greater 
pleasure,  sir ;  but  a  keen  sense  of  duty  to  this  government, 
justice  and  mercy  to  its  most  loyal  supporters,  and  regard  for 
your  honor  and  position,  made  me  come.  The  people  cannot 
understand  why  their  husbands,  fathers  and  sons  are  left  to 
die,  when,  with  proper  care  and  attention,  they  ought  to  live, 
and  yet  do  good  service  for  their  country.  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  do 


448  LIFE    OP   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

believe  you  will  yet  be  grateful  for  my  coming.  -  I  do  not 
come  to  plead  for  the  lives  of  criminals,  nor  for  the  lives  of 
deserters ;  but  I  plead  for  the  lives  of  those  who  were  the  first 
to  hasten  to  the  support  of  this  government,  who  helped  to 
place  you  where  you  are — for  men  who  have  done  all^thcy 
could ;  and  now,  when  flesh  and  nerve  and  muscle  are  gone, 
who  still  pray  for  your  life,  and  the  life  of  the  republic.  They 
scarcely  ask  for  that  for  which  I  plead.  |  They  expect  to  sac 
rifice  their  lives  for  their  country.  I  know  that,  if  they  could 
come  North,  they  could  live,  and  be  well,  strong  men  again, — 
at  least,  many  of  them.  I  say  I  know,  because  I  was  sick 
among  them  last  spring,  surrounded  by  every  comfort,  with 
the  best  of  care,  and  determined  to  get  well.  I  grew  weaker 
and  weaker,  day  by  day,  until,  not  being  under  military  law, 
my  friends  brought  me  North.  I  recovered  entirely  by  breath 
ing  northern  air." 

While  she  was  so  earnestly  speaking,  Mr.  Lincoln's  expres 
sion  of  face  changed  often,  but  he  did  not  take  his  eyes  from 
her.  -He  was  evidently  distressed,  for  he  was  convinced  that 
she  was  speaking  the  truth.  His  face  contracted  almost  pain 
fully  as  he  said:  "You  assume  to  know  more  than  I  do." 
The  tears  almost  came  in  the  lady's  eyes  as  she  replied :  "  Par 
don  me,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  intend  no  disrespect ;  but  it  is  because 
of  this  knowledge,  and  because  I  do  know  what  you  do  not 
know,  that  I  come  to  you.  If  you  had  known  what  I  know, 
and  had  not  already  ordered  what  I  ask,  I  should  know  that 
an  appeal  to  you  would  be  in  vain ;  but  I  believe  in  you.  I 
believe  the  people  have  not  trusted  you  in  vain.  The  ques 
tion  only  is — do  you  believe  me,  or  not  ?  If  you  believe  in 
me,  you  will  give  us  hospitals ;  if  not — well." 

"You  assume  to  know  more  than  surgeons  do,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  sharply.  "Oh  no,"  she  replied;  "I  could  not  per 
form  an  amputation  nearly  so  well  as  some  of  them  do.  But 
this  is  true:  I  do  not  come  here  for  your  favor.  I  am  no 
aspirant  for  military  favor  or  promotion.  While  it  would  be 
the  pride  of  my  life  to  command  your  respect  and  confidence, 
still,  even  this  I  can  waive  to  gain  my  object — waive  for  the 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  449 

time.  You  will  do  me  justice,  some  time.  Now  the  medical 
authorities  know  as  well  as  you  and  I  do,  that  you  are  opposed 
to  establishing  northern  hospitals ;  and  they  report  to  please 
you.  They  desire  your  favor.  I  come  to  you  from  no  casual 
tour,  of  inspection,  having  passed  rapidly  through  the  general 
hospitals,  with  a  cigar  in  my  mouth  and  a  ratan  in  my  hand, 
talking  to  the  surgeon  in  charge  of  the  price  of  cotton,  and 
abusing  our  generals  in  the  army  for  not  knowing  and  per 
forming  their  duty  better,  and  finally  coming  into  the  open  air 
with  a  long-drawn  breath  as  though  I  had  just  escaped  suffo 
cation,  and  complacently  saying  to  the  surgeon:  'A  very  fine 
hospital  you  have  here,  Sir.  The  boys  seem  to  be  doing  very 
well.  A  little  more  attention  to  ventilation  is  desirable,  per 
haps.'  It  is  not  thus  that  I  have  visited  hospitals.  For  eight 
long  months — from  early  morning  until  late  at  night,  some 
times — I  have  visited  the  regimental  and  general  hospitals  on 
the  Mississippi,  from  Quincy  to  Vicksburg;  and  I  come  to 
you  from  the  cots  of  men  who  have  died,  and  who  might  have 
lived  if  you  had  permitted  it.  This  is  hard  to  say,  but  it  is 
true." 

While  she  was  speaking  the  last  sentences,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
brow  had  become  severely  contracted ;  and  a  pained,  hard  ex 
pression  had  settled  upon  his  whole  face.  Then  he  sharply 
asked  her  how  many  men  her  state  had  sent  to  the  field.  She 
replied :  "  about  fifty  thousand."  "  That  means,"  he  responded, 
"  that  she  has  about  twenty  thousand  now."  With  an  unpleas 
ant  voice  and  manner  he  continued:  "You  need  not  look  so 
sober;  they  are  not  all  dead."  The  veins  filled  in  his  face 
painfully,  and  one  across  his  forehead  was  fearfully  large  and 
blue.  Then,  with  an  impatient  movement  of  his  whole  frame, 
he  said:  "I  have  a  good  mind  to  dismiss  them  all  from  the 
service,  and  have  no  more  trouble  with  them." 

The  lady  was  astonished,  as  she  might  well  be,  for  she  knew 
that  he  was  not  in  earnest.  They  sat  looking  at  one  another 
in  silence*  He  had  become  very  pale,  and  at  last  she  broke 
the  silence  by  saying:  "They  have  been  faithful  to  the  gov 
ernment  ;  they  have  been  faithful  to  you ;  they  will  still  be 
29 


450  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

loyal  to  the  government, -do  what  you  will  with  them.  But, 
if  you  will  grant  my  petition,  you  will  be  glad  as  long  as  you 
live.  The  prayers  of  grateful  hearts  will  give  you  strength 
in  the  hour  of  trial,  and  strong  and  willing  arms  will  return 
to  fight  yrfur  battles." 

The  President  bowed  his  head ;  and,  with  a  look  of  sadness 
which  it  is  impossible  for  language  to  describe,  said:  "I shall 
never  be  glad  any  more."  All  severity  had  passed  away  from 
his  face,  and  he  seemed  looking  inward  and  backward,  and 
appeared  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  he  was  not  alone.  The 
great  burdens  he  had  borne,  the  terrible  anxieties  and  per 
plexities  that  had  poisoned  his  life  at  the  fountain,  and  the 
peaceful  scenes  he  had  forever  left  behind,  swept  across  his 
memory ;  and  then  the  thought  that  it  was  possible  that  he 
had  erred  in  judgment,  and  done  injustice  to  the  noble  men 
who  had  fought  the  nation's  battles,  brought  back  all  his  child 
like  tenderness. 

The  lady  heard  his  mournful  utterances,  and  said :  "  Oh !  do 
not  say  so,  Mr.  Lincoln,  for  who  will  have  so  much  reason  to 
rejoice  as  yourself,  when  the  government  shall  be  restored — 
as  it  will  be?" 

"I  know — I  know,"  he  said,  pressing  a  hand  on  either  side; 
"but  the  springs  of  life  are  wearing  away,  and  I  shall  not 
last."  She  asked  him  if  he  felt  that  his  great  cares  were  in 
juring  his  health.  "No,"  he  replied;  "not  directly,  perhaps." 
She  asked  him  if  he  slept  well.  He  never  was  a  good  sleeper, 
he  replied,  and  of  course  slept  now  less  than  ever  before. 
Then,  with  earnestness,  he  said :  "  The  people  do  not  yet  com 
prehend  the  magnitude  of  this  rebellion,  and  it  will  be  a  long 
time  before  the  end." 

The  lady,  feeling  that  she  had  occupied  too  much  of  his 
time,  rose  to  take  her  leave ;  and,  as  she  did  so,  said :  "  Have 
•you  decided  upon  your  answer  to  me?"  "No,"  he  replied, 
"come  to-morrow  morning: — stop,  it  is  cabinet-meeting  to 
morrow.  Yes,  come  at  twelve  o'clock;  there  is  not  much  for 
the  cabinet  to  do,  to-morrow."  Then  he  bade  his  visitor  a 
cordial  good  morning,  and  she  retired. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  451 

The  next  morning,  the  lady  found  that  her  interview  had 
prostrated  her ;  but  at  twelve  o'clock  she  was  at  the  White 
House.  The  President  sent  her  word  that  the  cabinet  would 
adjourn  soon,  and  that  she  must  wait.  For  three  long  hours 
she  waited,  receiving  occasional  messages  from  Mr.  Lincoln, 
to  the  effect  that  the  cabinet  would  soon  adjourn,  and  he  would 
then  see  her.  She  was  in  distress,  expecting  defeat.  She 
walked  the  room,  and  gazed  at  the  maps,  and,  at  last,  she  heard 
the  sound  of  feet.  The  cabinet  had  adjourned.  Mr.  Lincoln 
did  not  send  for  her,  but  came  shuffling  into  the  room,  rubbing 
his  hands,  and  saying :  "  My  dear  Madam,  I  am  sorry  I  have 
kept  you  waiting  so  long,  but  we  have  this  moment  adjourned." 
"  My  waiting  is  no  matter,"  she  replied,  "  but  you  must  be 
very  tired,  and  we  will  not  talk  to-night."  Bidding  her  to  a 
seat,  she  having  risen  as  he  entered,  he  sat  down  at  her  side, 
and  quietly  remarked :  "I  only  wish  to  say  to  you  that  an 
order  which  is  equivalent  to  the  granting  of  a  hospital  in  your 
state,  has  been  issued  from  the  War  Department,  nearly 
twenty-four  hours." 

The  lady  could  make  no  reply,  except  through  the  tears 
that  sprang  at  once.  Mr.  Lincoln  looked  on,  and  enjoyed  it. 
When,  at  last,  she  cotild  command  her  voice,  she  said :  "  God 
bless  you ! "  Then,  as  doubts  came,  touching  the  nature  of 
the  order,'  she  said  earnestly :  "Do  you  mean,  really  and  truly, 
that  we  are  going  to  have  a  hospital  now?"  With  a  look  full 
of  benevolence  and  tenderness, — such  a  look  as  rarely  illumi 
nates  any  face, — he  said:  "I  do  most  certainly  hope  so;"  and 
then  he  told  her  to  come  on  the  following  morning,  and  he 
would  give  her  a  copy  of  the  order.  But  his  visitor  was  too 
much  affected  to  talk ;  and  perceiving  this,  he  kindly  changed 
the  subject,  asking  her  to  look  at  a  map  which  hung  in  the 
room,  representing  the  great  battle-grounds  of  Europe.  "It 
is  a  very  fine  map,"  said  he;  "see — here  is  Waterloo,  here 
are  all  the  battle-fields  about  the  Crimea."  Then,  suddenly 
turning  to  the  lady,  he  said:  "I  'm  afraid  you  will  not  like  it 
so  well,  when  I  tell  you  who  executed  it."  She  replied:  "It 
is  a  great  work,  whoever  executed  it.  Who  was  it,  Mr. 


452  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

President?"  "McClellan,"  he  answered,  and  added:  "He 
certainly  did  do  this  well.  He  did  it  while  he  was  at  West 
Point." 

The  next  morning,  sick  with  the  excitement  through  which 
she  had  passed,  the  lady  was  at  the  White  House  again. 
She  found  more  than  fifty  persons  waiting  for  an  audience ; 
so  she  sent  in  her  name,  and  said  she  would  call  again.  The 
messenger  said  he  thought  the  President  would  see  her,  and 
she  had  better  be  seated.  Soon  afterward,  he  informed  her 
that  the  President  would  see  her.  As  she  passed  in,  she  heard 
the  words  from  one  of  the  waiting  throng :  "  She  has  been 
here  six  days ;  and,  what  is  more,  she  is  going  to  win."  As 
she  entered,  Mr.  Lincoln  smiled  pleasantly,  drew  a  chair  to 
his  side,  and  said :  "  Come  here,  and  sit  down."  As  she  did 
so,  he  handed  her  a  copy  of  the  coveted  order.  She  thanked 
him,  and  apologized  for  not  being  more  promptly  at  "the  house ; 
she  had  been  sick  all  night.  "Did  joy  make  you  sick?"  he 
inquired.  "I  suppose,"  he  added,  "you  would  have  been 
mad  if  I  had  said  'no.'"  She  replied:  "No,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I 
should  have  been  neither  angry  nor  sick."  "What  would 
you  have  done?"  he  inquired.  "I -should  have  been  here  at 
nine  o'clock  this  morning."  "Well,"  said  he,  laughing,  "I 
think  I  have  acted  wisely  then."  Then  he  turned:  suddenly, 
and  looked  into  her  face  as  he  said :  "  Do  n't  you  ever  get 
angry?"  She  replied  that  she  never  did  when  she  had  an 
important  object  to  attain.  Further  conversation  occurred  as 
to  the  naming  of  the  hospital,  when  the  lady  rose,  and  said : 
"You  will  not  wish  to  see  me  again."  "I  did  not  say  that, 
and  I  shall  not  say  it,"  said  the  President.  "You  have  been 
very  kind  to  me,  and  I  am  very  grateful  for  it,"  said  his  visi 
tor.  He  looked  up  at  her  from  under  his  eyebrows,  in  his 
peculiar  way,  and  said :  "  You  almost  think  I  am  handsome, 
don't  you?"  His  face  was  full  of  benevolence,  and  his  coun 
tenance  lighted  by  a  cordial  smile ;  and  it  is  not  strange  that 
the  lady  exclaimed:  "You  are  perfectly  lovely  to  me  now, 
Mr.  Lincoln."  The  President  colored  a  little,  and  laughed  a 
good  deal,  at  the  impulsive  response,  and  reached  out  his  hand 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  453 

to  bid  her  farewell.  She  took  it  reverently,  bowed  her  head 
upon  it,  and,  bowing,  prayed :  "  God  bless  you,  Abraham  Lin 
coln  ! "  Then  she  turned,  heard  his  "  good  bye,"  and  was  gone. 

"I  shall  never  be  glad  anymore!"  The  young  men 'of 
his  people  were  slain.  His  enemies  were  seeking  his  life. 
With  a  heart  that  beat  kindly  toward  every  human  being, 
his  motives  were  maligned,  and  his  good  name  was  contemned ; 
greedy  politicians  and  ambitious  officers  were  about  him, 
pushing  forward  their  selfish  schemes ;  he  had  daily  experience 
of  the  faithlessness  of  men;  and  uthis  great  trouble,"  as  he 
was  accustomed  to»call  the  war,  was  always  on  his  mind  and 
heart.  He  could  not  sleep ;  and,  such  was  the  character  of 
the  impression  he  had  received  from  all  his  toils  and  cares, 
that  he  felt  he  could  never  be  glad  any  more. 

In  Mr.  Lincoln's  senatorial  campaign,  and  during  the  course 
of  his  debates  with  Mr.  Douglas,  it  will  be  remembered 
that  he  was  not  once  betrayed  into  a  loss  of  temper.  He  was 
misrepresented  and  abused  in  every  way,  in  order  to  break 
down  his  good  nature ;  but,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  he  did 
not  utter  an  angry  or  an  impatient  word.  Then  he  was  well — 
in  the  full  strength  of  a  hardy  constitution.  The  interview 
just  narrated  has  shown  how  much  he  had  become  changed 
by  bearing  the  burdens  of  office.  When  he  saw  that  his  vis 
itor  was  not  only  overthrowing  his  theory  but  the  policy  he 
had  based  upon  it,  and  felt  either  that  he  was,  or  that  he  might 
be,  in  the  wrong,  he  became  peevish  and  querulous.  This 
was  very  unlike  Mr.  Lincoln  in  health.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  generous  of  men  in  his  dealings ;  but  weakness  and  weari 
ness  made  him  on  this,  and  on  some  other  occasions,  childish  and 
petulant.  Exhibitions  of  this  character,  which  occurred  dur 
ing  the  last  two  years  of  his  life,  are  all  referable  to  the  pros 
trated  and  irritable  condition  of  his  nervous  system,  resulting 
from  excessive  labor,  mental  suffering,  and  loss  of  sleep. 

The  interview  with  the  lady  will  show,  too,  how  universal 
and  how  minute  were  his  cares.  This  case  was  only  one 
among  ten  thousand  cases  that  came  to  him  for  decision.  It 
was  a  great  thing  to  her,  and  of  itself  made  her  sick.  It 


454  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

lasted  with  her  a  week.  It  concerned  the  establishment  of  a 
hospital,  simply.  With  him,  the  burden  never  was  laid  aside. 
He  bare  hundreds  of  matters  upon  his  mind,  all  as  important 
as  this;  and  felt  pressing  upon  his  shoulders  the  interests  of 
freedom,  the  future  of  a  wonderful  nation,  and  the  destiny  of 
a  race ;  while  he  wielded  as  instruments  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  his  purposes  a  great  government,  and  an  army  com 
posed  of  the  flower  of  the  national  life.  It  was  killing  him. 
There  was  always  one  tired  spot  in  him  that  was  not  reached 
by  rest. 

Throughout  the  rebellion,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  recipient  of 
many  attentions  from  the  various  bodies  which  constitute  the 
Christian  church  of  America.  There  was  hardly  a  denomi 
nation  that  did  not  take  occasion  to  express  itself  upon  the 
war,  and  the  great  questions  of  humanity  which  it  involved. 
They  visited  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  White  House;  they  ap 
proached  him  with  addresses  .and  resolutions ;  and  the  major 
ity  of  them  called  forth  from  him  either  spoken  or  written 
responses.  Representatives  of  foreign  religious  and  philan 
thropic  organizations  mingled  their  voices  with  these.  Ex 
pressions  of  personal  sympathy,  declarations  of  loyalty  and 
devotion  to  the  national  cause,  recommendations  of  policy, 
counsels,  prayers,  encouragements, — all  poured  in,  in  almost 
bewildering  profusion,  and  of  themselves  became  a  burden. 
McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion  gives  forty-seven  large 
and  finely  printed  pages,  consisting  entirely  of  records  of  the 
action  of  the  northern  churches  upon  the  rebellion ;  and  the 
results  of  this  action  were  communicated  to  the  President  in  a 
way  to  draw  from  him  either  grateful  acknowledgments,  or  re 
sponses  that  related  to  their  subject  matter. 

The  wear  and  tear  of  brain  and  nerve  were  often  manifested 
in  a  deep  melancholy,  to  which  he  had  a  natural  tendency. 
"Whichever  way  it  ends,"  said  he  to  Mrs.  Stowe,  the  au 
thoress,  alluding  to  the  war,  "I  have  the  impression  that  I 
shall  not  last  long  after  it  is  over."  Hon.  Schuyler  Colfax 
met  him  one  morning,  after  having  received  bad  news  whick 
had  not  been  made  public.  He  had  neither  slept  nor  break- 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  455 

fasted,  and  exclaimed :  "  How  willingly  would  I  exchange 
places  to-day  with  the  soldier  who  sleeps  on  the  ground  in  the 
army  of  the  Potomac !  "  During  the  doubts  and  disasters  of 
1862,  a  member  of  Congress  called  on  him  for  conversation. 
Mr.  Lincoln  began  to  tell  a  trifling  story.  "Mr.  President," 
said  the  Congressman,  rising,  "I  did  not  come  here  this  morn- 
ino;  to  hear  stories.  It  is  too  serious  a  time."  The  smile 

O 

fled  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  face,  as  he  replied:  "A.,  sit  down. 
I  respect  you  as  an  earnest  and  sincere  man.  You  cannot  be 
more  anxious  than  I  am  constantly ;  and  I  say  to  you  now, 
that,  if  it  were  not  for  this  occasional  vent,  I  should  die."  To 
another  he  said :  "  I  feel  a  presentiment  that  I  shall  not  outlast 
the  rebellion.  When  it  is  over,  my  work  will  be  done."  Of 
this  presentiment  he  made  no  secret,  but  spoke  of  it  to  many 
of  his  friends. 

Thus  sad  and  weary,  working  early  and  late,  full  of  the  con 
sciousness  that  God  was  working  through  him  for  the  accom 
plishment  of  great  ends,  praying  daily  for  strength  and  guid 
ance,  with  a  heart  full  of  warm  charity  toward  his  foes,  and 
open  with  sympathy  ..toward  the  poor  and  the  suffering,  this 
Christian  President  sat  humbly  in  his  high  seat,  and  did  his 
duty.  It  is  with  genuine  pain  that  the  writer  is  compelled  to 
leave  behind,  unrecorded,  save  in  the  floating  literature  of  the 
day,  multiplied  instances  which  illustrate  his  tender-hearted 
ness,  his  pity,  his  over-ruling  sense  of  justice,  hie  paticnco 
under  insult,  his  loveliness  of  spirit,  his  devotion  to  humanity, 
his  regard  for  the  poor  and  the  despised,  his  truthfulness,  his 
simplicity,  and  the  long  list  of  manly  virtues  vdiich  distin 
guished  his  character  and  his  career.  They  would  of  them 
selves  fill  a  volume. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  character  was  one  which  will  grow.  It  will 
become  the  basis  of  an  ideal  man.  It  was  so  pure,  and  so  un 
selfish,  and  so  rich  in  its  materials,  that  fine  imaginations  will 
spring  from  it,  to  blossom  and  bear  fruit  through  all  the  cen 
turies.  This  element  was  found  in  Washington,  whose  hu 
man  weaknesses  seem  to  have  faded  entirely  from  memory, 
leaving  him  a  demi-god ;  and  it  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Lincoln 


456  LIFE   OP  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

in  a  still  more  remarkable  degree.  The  black  race  have 
already  crowned  him.  With  the  black  man,  and  particularly 
the  blacls  freed  man,  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  is  the  saintliest  which 
he  pronounces,  and  the  noblest  he  can  conceive.  To  the 
emancipated,  he  is  more  than  man — a  being  scarcely  second 
to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself.  That  old,  white-headed 
negro  who  undertook  to  tell  what  "Massa  Linkum"  was  to 
his  dark-minded  brethren,  imbodied  the  vague  conceptions 
of  his  race,  in  the  words:  "Massa  Linkum,  he  ebery  whar; 
he  know  ebery  ting;  he  walk  de  earf  like  de  Lord."  He  was 
to  these  men  the  incarnation  of  power  and  goodness ;  and  his 
memory  will  live  in  the  hearts  of  this  unfortunate  and  op 
pressed  race  while  it  shall  exist  upon  the  earth. 


CHAPTEE   XXVI. 

ON  the  9th  of  December,  1863,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  in  his  an 
nual  message  to  Congress,  which  had  assembled  on  the  seventh. 
It  represented  the  country  as  holding  satisfactory  relations 
with  foreign  powers ;  spoke  favorably  of  the  establishment  of 
an  international  telegraph  across  the  Atlantic ;  referred  to  the 
movements  abroad  for  emigration  to  this  country,  to  fill  the 
demand  for  labor  in  every  field  of  industry ;  stated  that  the 
operations  of  the  Treasury  Department  had  been  successfully 
conducted  durinp;  the  year ;  and  gave  a  general  historical  ac 
count  of  the  operations  of  the  army  and  navy.  Eleven  months 
had  passed  since  the  final  proclamation  of  emancipation  was 
issued ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  the  matter  to  see  what  prog 
ress  had  been  made  under  its  operations.  The  policy  of  eman 
cipation  and  of  the  employment  of  black  soldiers  had  changed 
the  aspect  of  affairs ;  and,  though  it  was  immediately  followed 
by  dark  and  doubtful  days,  the  results  had  vindicated  its  wis 
dom.  The  rebel  borders  had  been  pressed  still  further  back ; 
the  rebel  territory  had  been  divided  by  the  opening  of  the 
Mississippi;  Tennessee  and  Arkansas  had  been  substantially 
cleared  of  insurgent  control;  and,  in  these  states,  influen 
tial  citizens  were  declaring  openly  for  emancipation.  Mary 
land  and  Missouri,  neither  of  which  states,  three  years  previ 
ously,  would  tolerate  any  restraint  upon  the  extension  of  slav 
ery  into  new  territories,  were  disputing  only  as  to  the  best 
mode  of  removing  it  from  their  own  limits.  Of  those  who 
were  slaves  at  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion,  full  one  hundred 


458  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

thousand  were  in  the  military  service  of  the  United  States, 
and  about  one-half  of  them  were  bearing  arms  in  the  ranks. 
No  servile  insurrection,  or  tendency  to  violence  or  cruelty, 
had  marked  the  measures  of  emancipation  and  the  arming  of 
the  blacks.  The  tone  of  public  feeling  abroad  had  improved 
under  the  influence  of  the  policy,  while  the  government  had 
been  encouraged  and  supported  by  elections  at  home.  The 
new  reckoning  showed  that  the  crisis  which  threatened  to  di 
vide  the  friends  of  the  Union  was  passed. 

The  message  treated  with  considerable  detail  a  question 
which  had,  from  the  first,  been  one  of  great  importance,  and 
which,  it  was  seen,  would  grow  more  important  with  the  prog 
ress  of  events.  On  the  day  previous  to  the  delivery  of  the 
message,  he  had  issued  a  proclamation  of  amnesty,  to  all  those 
engaged  in  the  rebellion  who  should  take  an  oath  to  support, 
protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  Union  of  the  states  under  it,  with  the  acts  of  Congress 
passed  during  the  rebellion,  and  the  proclamations  of  the  Presi 
dent  concerning  slaves,  This  proclamation  made  certain  ex 
ceptions  of  persons  in  the  civil  and  military  service  of  the 
rebel  government,  and  of  persons  who  had  left  the  civil  and 
military  service  of  the  United  States  to  aid  in  the  rebellion. 
It  further  declared  that  whenever,  in  any  of  the  rebel  states, 
a  number  of  persons,  not  less  than  one-tenth  of  the  qualified 
voters,  should  take  this  oath,  and  establish  a  state  government 
which  should  be  republican,  it  should  be  recognized  as  the 
true  government  of  the  state.  These  were  the  principal  pro 
visions  of  the  proclamation ;  and  to  them  the  President  called 
congressional  attention. 

He  had  issued  it,  he  said,  "looking  to  the  present  and  the 
future,  and  with  reference  to  a  resumption  of  the  national 
authority  in  the  states  wherein  that  authority  had  been  sus 
pended."  He  had  given  the  form  of  an  oath;  but  no  man 
was  coerced  to  take  it.  Men  were  only  promised  pardon  in 
case  they  should  voluntarily  take  it.  Amnesty  was  offered, 
so  that,  if,  in  any  of  the  rebel  states,  a  state  government  should 
be  set  up,  in  the  mode  prescribed,  it  should  be  recognized  and 


LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  459 

guaranteed  by  the  United  States,  and  protected  against  inva 
sion  and  domestic  violence.  The  following  passage  is  his  jus 
tification  for  prescribing  the  peculiar  oath  which  he  had  made 
the  condition  of  pardon : 

"An  attempt  to  guarantee  and  protect  a  revived  state  government, 
constructed  in  whole  or  in  preponderating  part  from  the  very  element 
against  whose  hostility  and  violence  it  is  to  be  protected,  is  simply 
absurd.  There  must  be  a  test  by  which  to  separate  the  opposing  ele 
ments,  so  as  to  build  only  from  the  sound ;  and  that  test  is  a  sufficiently 
liberal  one  which  accepts  as  sound  whoever  will  make  a  sworn  recanta 
tion  of  his  former  unsoundness.  But,  if  it  be  proper  to  require,  as  a 
test  of  admission  to  the  political  body,  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  and  to  the  Union  under  it,  why  also  to  the 
laws  and  proclamations  in  regard  to  slavery  ?  Those  laws  and  procla 
mations  were  enacted,  and  put  forth,  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the 
"suppression  of  the  rebellion.  To  give  them  their  fullest  effect,  there 
had  to  be  a  pledge  for  their  maintenance.  In  my  judgment,  they  have 
aided  and  will  further  aid  the  cause  for  which  they  were  intended.  To 
now  abandon  them,  would  be  not  only  to  relinquish  a  lever  of  power, 
but  would  also  be  a  cruel  and  an  astounding  breach  of  faith.  I  may 
add,  at  this  point,  that  while  I  remain  in  my  present  position,  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  retract,  or  modify,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation ;  nor 
shall  I  return  to  slavery  any  person  who  is  free  by  the  terms  of  that 
proclamation,  or  by  any  of  the  acts  of  Congress. 

"  For  these  and  other  reasons,  it  is  thought  best  that  support  of  these 
measures  shall  be  included  in  the  oath ;  and  it  is  believed  that  the  Ex 
ecutive  may  lawfully  claim  it,  in  return  for  pardon  and  restoration  of 
forfeited  rights,  which  he  has  a  clear  constitutional  power  to  withhold 
altogether,  or  grant  upon  the  terms  which  he  shall  deem  wisest  for  the 
public  interest.  It  should  be  observed,  also,  that  this  part  of  the  oath 
is  subject  to  the  modifying  and  abrogating  power  of  legislation  and 
supreme  judicial  decision." 

This  proclamation  was  issued  as  a  rallying  point  for  those 
loyal  or  penitent  elements  which  were  believed  to  exist  in 
many  of  the  insurgent  states,  and  which,  in  the  confusion 
of  plans  for  reconstruction,  were  lying  dormant,  and  with 
out  practical  advantage  to  the  states  themselves  and  to  the 
government.  He  believed  his  plan  of  reconstruction  would 
save  labor,  and  avoid  great  confusion.  On  the  24th  of 
March,  1864,  he  issued  a  supplementary  and  explanatory 


460  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

proclamation,  defining  more  carefully  the  cases  in  which  reb 
els  were  to  be  pardoned,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  benefits  of  the  amnesty.  He  shut 
out  many  from  the  benefits  of  the  proclamation,  though  he 
excluded  none  from  personal  application  to  the  President  for 
clemency. 

The  action  of  Congress  during  this  session  was  not  of  nota 
ble  importance.  Important  subjects  were  discussed  at  length ; 
but  they  were  not  embodied  in  measures,  or,  rather,  the  meas 
ures  sought  to  be  enacted  were  not  successfully  carried 
through.  A  bill  for  the  establishment  of  a  Bureau  of  Freed- 

O 

men's  Affairs  passed  the  House,  but  failed  in  the  Senate ;  while 
a  resolution  to  submit  to  a  vote  of  the  states  an  amendment 
of  the  Constitution,  permanently  prohibiting  the  existence  of 
slavery  in  the  states  and  territories  of  the  Union,  was  passed 
by  the  Senate,  but  rejected  by  the  House.  The  fugitive  slave 
law — one  of  those  compromise  measures  which  were  to  silence 
the  anti-slavery  agitation  forever,  and  be  a  final  settlement  of 
the  slavery  question — was  repealed,  with  surprising  ease  and 
unanimity.  A  heated  debate  occurred  upon  a  resolution 
introduced  by  Speaker  Colfax,  for  the  expulsion  from  the 
House  of  Alexander  Long  of  Ohio,  for  declaring  himself  in 
favor  of  recognizing  the  rebel  confederacy.  A  two-thirds 
vote  being  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  the  resolution,  and 
this  vote  not  being  obtainable,  the  mover  contented  himself 
with  a  substitute,  declaring  Mr.  Long  an  unworthy  member 
of  the  House.  During  the  discussion  of  the  resolution,  Mr. 
Harris  of  Maryland  thanked  God  that  the  South  had  not  yet 
been  brought  into  subjection,  and  prayed  God  that  it  might 
not  be ;  and  straightway  a  resolution  was  introduced  for  his 
expulsion,  which  failed  of  passage  by  lack  of  the  requisite 
two-thirds  vote.  He  was,  however,  "  severely  censured ;  " 
and,  although  no  extreme  measures  were  effected  in  these 
cases,  the  debate  had  a  healthy  influence,  in  defining  the  boun 
daries  of  legitimate  debate  on  the  great  questions  which  agi 
tated  the  country. 

An  outcropping  of  the  Missouri  imbroglio  showed  itself 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  461 

above  the  surface  during  the  session.  General  F.  P.  Blair 
resigned  his  seat  in  the  House,  and  resumed  his  place  in  the 
army,  at  the  close  of  a  discussion  introduced  by  one  of  his 
colleagues,  who  charged  him  with  improprieties  in  the  admin 
istration  of  affairs  in  his  department.  Although  he  cleared 
himself  of  the  charges,  the  House  called  upon  the  President 
for  an  explanation  of  his  restoration  to  command.  The  Presi 
dent  gave  them  a  reply  at  length,  and  frankly  stated  all  the 
circumstances  of  the  case.  The  two  facts  which  the  letter 
and  all  the  correspondence  in  the  case  reveal  most  promi 
nently,  were,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  strong  personal  friend 
ship  for  General  Blair,  and  a  firm  belief  in  his  anti-slavery 
principles  and  sentiments ;  and  that  he  wished  him  to  be  where 
he  could  do  the  government  the  most  good  in  the  prosecution 
of  the  war.  Mr.  Lincoln's  representation  of  the  case  was, 
that  General  Blair  and  General  Schenck  of  Ohio,  having  been 
elected  to  Congress,  were  permitted  to  resign  their  commis 
sions,  and  take  their  seats,  with  the  distinct  verbal  under 
standing  with  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  War  that 
they  might,  at  their  pleasure,  withdraw  their  resignations, 
leave  their  places  in  the  House,  and  return  to  the  field.  It  is 
apparent  that  Mr.  Lincoln  wished  for  General  Blair's  aid  in 
the  organization  of  the  House,  and,  after  that,  in  the  field,  if 
he  could  be  most  useful  to  the  government  there.  The  ar 
rangement  seems  to  have  been  a  little  irregular,  though  en 
tered  upon  with  the  best  motives.  It  was  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
short  cuts  out  of  the  labyrinth  of  "  red  tape,"  in  which  it  was 
always  difficult  for  him  to  walk.  In  a  letter  which  he  wrote 
to  Montgomery  Blair,  he  revealed  one  of  the  motives  which 
actuated  him  in  making  the  arrangement.  <fclt  will  relieve 
him  (the  General)  from  a  dangerous  position,  or  a  misunder 
standing,"  said  he,  "  as  I  think  he  is  in  danger  of  being  per 
manently  separated  from  those  with  whom  only  he  can  ever 
have  a  real  sympathy — the  sincere  opponents  of  slavery." 

A  measure  which  time  has  proved  to  be  of  great  importance 
was  the  restoration  of  the  grade  of  Lieutenant-general,  with 
reference  to  investing  General  Grant  with  the  chief  command 


462  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

of  the  armies  of  the  United  States.  His  appointment  to  this 
office,  by  the  President,  was  an  expression  of  the  popular  con 
fidence  in  his  devotion  to  the  national  cause,  and  his  trans 
cendent  ability  as  a  military  man.  In  presenting  him  with  his 
commission,  Mr.  Lincoln  took  occasion  to  say:  "The  expres 
sion  of  the  nation's  approbation  of  what  you  have  already 
done,  and  its  reliance  on  you  for  what  remains  to  do,  in  the 
existing  struggle,  is  now  presented  with  this  commission,  con 
stituting  you  Lieutenant-general  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States."  The  modest  General  made  a  fitting  response:  "I 
feel  the  full  weight  of  the  responsibilities  now  devolving  on 
me ;  and  I  know  that,  if  they  are  met,  it  will  be  due  to  those 
armies,  and  above  all  to  the  favor  of  that  Providence  which 
leads  both  nations  and  men."  Fit  officer  with  fit  superior! 
Two  simpler-hearted,  truer  men  than  President  Lincoln  and 
Lieutenant-general  Grant,  have  not  been  produced  by  the  re 
public  ;  and,  in  their  hands,  unweakened  by  selfish  ambition, 
and  entirely  consecrated  to  the  work  of  saving  the  country, 
the  cause  of  nationality,  freedom,  and  humanity  was  destined 
to  a  glorious  triumph.  The  victories  of  both  had  been  victo 
ries  of  character.  Not  brilliant  gifts,  but  a  noble  spirit  had 
made  the  President  a  mighty  man.  Neither  the  courage  of 
the  brute  nor  the  dash  of  the  cavalier  had  made  General 
Grant  a  great  soldier ;  but  a  devoted  purpose  and  a  will  of  iron 
had  crowned  him  with  the  name  and  enrobed  him  with  the 
prestige  of  the  greatest  general  living. 

An  incident  occurred  on  the  J.8th  of  April,  1864,  which 
forcibly  illustrated  the  progress,  not  only  of  events,  but  of 
ideas.  A  grand  fair,  for  the  benefit  of  the  United  States 
Sanitary  Commission,  the  original  and  leading  charity  estab 
lished  to  mitigate  the  immediate  horrors  of  war,  was  held  in 
Baltimore ;  and  one  of  the  attractions  was  the  presence  and  the 
voice  of  President  Lincoln.  Three  years  had  introduced  and 
confirmed  great  changes.  Three  years  before  this  occasion, 
he  was  obliged  to  pass  through  the  city  in  the  night,  to  escape 
assassination.  Three  years  before,  the  Massachusetts  Sixth, 
fastening  to  the  protection  of  Washington,  had  left,  some  of 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  463 

their  members  dead  in  the  streets.  Three  years  before,  the 
whole  city  was  seething  with  treason.  Now,  gold  was  pour 
ing  into  die  treasury  of  the  great  charity  which  had  been  es 
tablished  to  aid  the  soldiers  of  the  Union ;  and  the  President 
was  welcomed  to  the  city  with  grateful  gladness. 

There  was  a  large  crowd,  and,  in  the  anxiety  to  get  a 
glimpse  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  to  hear  his  voice,  great  confusion ; 
but  enough  of  his  remarks  have  been  preserved  to  give  an 
idea  of  their  drift  and  spirit.  "  Calling  it  to  mind  that  we 
are  in  Baltimore,"  said  he,  "  we  cannot  fail  to  note  that  the 
world  moves.  Looking  upon  the  many  people  I  see  assembled 
here,  to  serve  as  they  best  may  the  soldiers  of  the  Union,  it  - 
occurs  to  me  that  three  years  ago  those  soldiers  could  not  pass 
through  Baltimore.  I  would  say,  blessings  upon  the  men  who 
have  wrought  these  changes,  and  the  women  who  have  assisted 
them!"  These  allusions  to  the  changes  in  Baltimore  were 
heartily  applauded  by  the  Baltimoreans ;  and,  when  he  pro 
ceeded  to  the  mention  of  changes  which  had  been  wrought 
upon  the  institution  of  slavery,  the  applause  was  still  more 
hearty  and  enthusiastic.  Maryland  had  practically  abolished 
the  institution;  and  the  President  thanked  her  for  what  she 
had  done  and  what  she  was  doing. 

A  month  or  two  later,  the  President  attended  another  fair 
of  the  Sanitary  Commission  at  Philadelphia.  Of  course,  these 
movements  were  not  entered  upon  to  gratify  a  love  of  excite 
ment  or  a  desire  for  display,  but  to  manifest  his  friendliness 
to  the  beneficent  purposes  qf  the  commission.  Here  a  grand 
supper  was  given ;  and,  in  response  to  a  toast,  Mr.  Lincoln 
made  a  brief  speech.  Opening  with  an  allusion  to  the  terrors 
and  burdens  of  war,  he  spoke  of  the  two  great  associations 
which  had  done  so  much  to  relieve  the  soldier,  in  the  field  and 
in  the  hospital,  and  paid  a  grateful  tribute  to  the  ministry  of 
woman  in  the  grefct  work  of  alleviating  the  suffering  of  the 
army.  Speaking  of  the  generous  outpouring  of  means  for 
sustaining  these  charities,  he  said :  "  They  are  voluntary  con 
tributions,  giving  proof  that  the  national  resources  are  not  at 
all  exhausted,  and  that  the  national  patriotism  will  sustain  us 


464  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

through  all."  Here,  as  always  and  everywhere,  the  war  was 
uppermost  in  his  mind.  "  It  is  a  pertinent  question,"  said  he, 
"  When  is  the  war  to  end  ?  I  do  not  wish  to  name  a  day 
when  it  will  end,  lest  the  end  should  not  come  at  the  given 
time.  We  accepted  the  war,  and  did  not  begin  it.  We  ac 
cepted  it  for  an  object,  and,  when  that  object  is  accomplished, 
the  war  will  end;  and  I  hope  to  God  it  will  never  end  until 
that  object  is  accomplished.  We  are  going  through  with  our 
task,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  if  it  takes  us  three  years  longer. 
I  have  not  been  in  the  habit  of  making  predictions,  but  I  am 
almost  tempted  now  to  hazard  one.  It  is,  that  Grant  is  this 
%evening  in  a  position,  with  Meade  and  Hancock  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  whence  he  can(never  be  dislodged  by  the  enemy,  until 
Richmond  is  taken."  Events  that  wait  to  be  recounted  veri 
fied  the  President's  prediction. 

A  fair  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  held  at  the  Patent 
Office,  in  Washington,  called  out  Mr.  Lincoln  as  an  interested 
visitor;  and  he  was  not  permitted  to  retire  without  giving  a 
word  to  those  in  attendance.  "  In  this  extraordinary  war," 
said  he,  "  extraordinary  developments  have  manifested  them 
selves,  such  as  have  not  been  seen  in  former  wars ;  and  among 
these  manifestations  nothing  has  been  more  remarkable  than 
these  fairs  for  the  relief  of  suffering  soldiers  and  their  families. 
And  the  chief  agents  in  these  fairs  are  the  women  of  America. 
I  am  not  accustomed  to  the  use  of  language  of  eulogy ;  I  have 
never  studied  the  art  of  paying  compliments  to  women;  but 
I  must  say  that  if  all  that  has  been  said  by  orators  and  poets, 
since  the  creation  of  the  world,  in  praise  of  women,  were  ap 
plied  to  the  women  of  America,  it  would  not  do  them  justice 
for  their  conduct  during  this  war.  I  will  close  by  saying, 
God  bless  the  women  of  America!" 

The  government  was  pledged  to  the  protection  of  its  black 
soldiers.  The  President  felt  that  the  matter  involved  many 
difficulties,  for  the  government  was  not  always  able  to  protect, 
them.  When  these  soldiers  were  shown  no  quarter  in  battle, 
or  when,  as  prisoners,  they  were  killed  or  enslaved  by  the  in 
furiated  and  unscrupulous  foe,  he  who  could  not  prevent  his 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  465 

white  soldiers  from  starving  to  death  in  rebel  prisons,  could 
hardly  protect  the  colored  soldiers  from  the  indignities  which 
rebel  policy  and  rebel  spite  inflicted  upon  them.  But  he  did 
what  he  could.  As  early  as  July  30th,  1863,  he  issued  an 
order  declaring  that:  "The  government  of  the  United  States 
will  give  the  same  protection  to  all  its  soldiers ;  and,  if  the 
enemy  shall  sell  or  enslave  any  one,  because  of  his  color,  the 
offense  shall  be  punished  by  retaliation  upon  the  enemy's  pris 
oners  in  our  possession."  Proceeding,  he  definitely  ordered, 
"  that  for  every  soldier  of  the  United  States  killed  in  violation 
of  the  lays  of  war,  a  rebel  soldier  should  (shall)  be  executed ; 
and  for  every  one  enslaved  by  the  enemy,  or  sold  into  slavery,* 
a  rebel  soldier  should  (shall)  be  placed  at  hard  labor  on  the 
public  works,  and  continued  at  such  labor  until  the  other 
should  (shall)  be  released,  or  receive  such  treatment  as  was 
(is,  or  may  be)  due  to  a  prisoner  of  war."  This  matter  of 
retaliation  was  brought  up  during  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  at  the 
Baltimore  Fair,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made  in  this  chap 
ter.  He  had  just  heard  the  rumor  of  the  massacre  of  black 
soldiers  and  white  officers  at  Fort  Pillow.  His  mind  was  full 
of  the  horrible  event;  and,  as  his  custom  was,  he  spoke  of 
that  which  interested  him  most.  The  public  thought  the  gov 
ernment  was  not  doing  its  whole  duty  in  this  matter.  For 
the  measure  which  put  the  black  man  into  the  war,  he  de 
clared  himself  responsible  to  the  American  people,  the  future 
historian,  and,  above  all,  to  God;  and  he  declared  that  the 
black  soldier  ought  to  have,  and  should  have,  the  same 
protection  given  to  the  white  soldier.  His  closing  words 
were: 


"  It  is  an  error  to  say  that  the  government  is  not  acting  in  this  mat 
ter.  The  government  has  no  direct  evidence  to  confirm  the  reports  in 
existence  relative  to  this  massacre,  but  I  believe  the  facts  in  relation  to 
it  to  be  as  stated.  When  the  government  does  know  the  facts  from  of 
ficial  sources,  and  they  prove  to  substantiate  the  reports,  retribution 
will  be  surely  given.  What  is  reported,  I  think,  will  make  a  clear  case. 
If  it  is  not  true,  then  all  such  stories  are  to  be  considered  as  false.  If 
proved  to  be  true,  when  the  matter  shall  be  thoroughly  examined,  what 
30 


466  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

shape  is  to  be  given  to  the  retribution?  Can  we  take  the  man  who  was 
captured  at  Vicksburg,  and  shoot  him  for  the  victim  of  this  massacre  ? 
If  it  should  happen  that  it  was  the  act  of  only  one  man,  what  course  is 
to  be  pursued  then?  It  is  a  matter  requiring  careful  examination  and 
deliberation ;  and,  if  it  shall  be  substantiated  by  sufficient  evidence,  all 
may  rest  assured  that  retribution  will  be  had." 

And  now  we  leave  these  minor  matters,  for  the  considera 
tion  of  great  and  decisive  events,  concerning  alike  the  life  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  life  of  the  nation. 


CHAPTER   XXVII. 

THE  year  1864  was  distinguished  by  two  grand  campaigns: 
one,  political;  the  other,  military:  and,  as  the  latter  did  not 
terminate  with  the  year,  it  is  well,  perhaps,  to  give  the  former 
the  precedence  in  the  record.  After  four  years,  marked  by 
mighty  changes  in  the  nation,  the  year  of  the  presidential 
election  had  come  as:ain.  It  came  in  with  doubt  and  darkness. 

o 

The  country  was  feeling  the  distresses  of  the  war,  and  was 
wincing  under  the  drafts  made  upon  its  vital  and  financial  re 
sources.  Call  after  call  for  men  had  been  made.  Draft  after 
draft  had  been  enforced.  Taxation  brought  home  the  burden 
to  every  man's  door;  and  still  no  end  appeared.  Still  the 
rebel  confederacy  seemed  full  of  vitality;  still  it  commanded 
immense  resources  of  men  and  material ;  still  its  spirit  and  its 
words  were  uncompromising  and  defiant.  During  four  years 
of  administration,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  made  many  enemies,  among 
those  who  had  originally  supported  him;  and  the  democratic 
party  were  not  scrupulous  in  the  use  of  means  to  bring  Kim 
into  disrepute  with  the  people.  Many  republicans  suffered 
under  private  grievances.  Their  counsels  had  not  been  suffi 
ciently  followed;  their  friends  had  not  been  properly  served. 
Some  thought  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  too  fast  and  too  severe  in 
his  measures ;  others  thought  that  he  had  been  too  slow.  All 
this  was  to  have  been  expected ;  and  it  may  well  be  imagined 
that  no  decision  as  to  the  true  policy  of  the  republican  party, 
in  its  nominations,  could  have  been  made,  without  an  exhibi 
tion  of  all  the  elements  of  discord. 

That  this  period  had  been  anticipated  by  friends  and  ene- 


468  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

mies  abroad  as  one  of  the  most  terrible  tests  to  which  the  re 
publican  institutions  of  the  country  had  been  or  could  be  sub 
jected,  was  evident.  We  were  called  upon  in  the  very  heat 
of  civil  war — that  war  involving  questions  upon  which  even 
the  loyal  portion  of  the  country  was  almost  evenly  divided — 
to  elect  a  president  for  four  years.  With  immense  armies  in 
the  field  and  immense  navies  afloat, — with  fresh  drafts  for 
troops  threatened  or  in  progress, — with  discord  among  the 
friends  of  the  government  and  the  foes  of  the  rebellion, — and 
with  a  watchful  opposition,  skilled  in  party  warfare,  taking  ad 
vantage  of  every  mistake  of  the  government  and  every  suc 
cess  of  its  enemies,  to  push  its  own  fortunes  in  the  strife  for 
power, — it  is  not  strange  that  cool  observers  looked  doubtfully 
upon  the  result,  as  it  related  to  the  power  of  a  republican 
government  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  maintain  its  hold  upon 
the  nation  and  its  place  among  the  governments  of  the  world. 
How  well  .the  people  behaved  in  this  startling  emergency,  the 
calm  discussions  of  the  presidential  campaign,  the  solemn  and 
conscientious  manner  of  the  people  at  the  polls,  the  triumph 
of  the  national  arms,  and  the  present  peace  and  stability  of 
the  country,  bear  witness. 

Mr.  Chase,  the  distinguished  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
had  his  friends,  and  they  were  many  and  powerful.  General 
Fremont  had  also  his  friends,  who  felt  that  he  had  not  been 
well  treated  by  the  administration,  and  who  were  anxious  for 
a  diversion  in  his  favor.  Although  both  of  these  gentlemen 
had  strong  adherents  among  the  politicians,  and  although 
either  of  them  would  have  been  cordially  supported  by  the 
people  under  favorable  circumstances,  it  was  abundantly  evi 
dent  that  the  great  masses  of  the  people  were  in  favor  of  Mr. 
Lincoln.  He  had  had  experience,  and  had  grown  wise  under 
its  influence.  His  unobtrusive  character  and  his  unbending 
honesty  had  won  their  confidence ;  and,  although  the  future 
looked  dark,  they  were  conscious  that  progress  had  been  made 
toward  the  destruction  of  the  rebellion,  and  that,  if  the  policy 
of  war  should  be  pursued,  it  would  inevitably  ultimate  in  the 
national  success.  They  were  convinced,  also,  that  the  way  to 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  469 

a  permanent  peace  was  through  war.  Under  these  circum 
stances,  they  were  reluctant  to  change  leaders  and  rulers. 
The  result  was,  that,  at  an  early  day,  Mr.  Chase  withdrew 
his  name  from  the  list  of  candidates,  and  left  much  of  the  dis 
affected  element  afloat. 

Outside  of  the  republican  and  democratic  parties,  there  was 
no  organization;  and,  to  institute  one,  an  irresponsible  call 
was  issued,  for  a  convention  to  be  held  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  on 
the  thirty-first  of  May.  The  call  represented"  that  the  public 
liberties  were  in  danger,  and  declared  for  the  "  one-term  prin 
ciple,"  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  set  aside,  however 
efficiently  he  might  have  served  the  government.  The  regu 
lar  convention  of  the  republican  party,  which  was  .to  be  held 
at  Baltimore  on  the  eighth  of  June,  was  denounced  in  the  call, 
as  failing  to  answer  the  conditions  of  a  truly  national  conven 
tion,  in  consequence  of  its  proximity  to  "  administrative  in 
fluence." 

The  people  recognized  this  call  to  be  simply  what  it,  in 
reality,  was — an  anti-Lincoln  demonstration;  and  paid  no  at 
tention  to  it,  except  in  one  or  two  instances.  The  Germans 
of  Missouri  did  something  by  way  of  indorsement;  as  did  also 
a  few  radicals  elsewhere,  who  had  really  never  been  members 
of  the  republican  party  proper. 

The  convention  was  held  at  the  appointed  time;  and  it 
brought  together  an  insignificant  number  of  politicians,  self- 
appointed  to  their  seats  in  the  convention.  It  was,  in  no  sense, 
the  offspring  of  the  popular  feeling  or  conviction ;  and  its  ac 
tion  found  no  response  in  the  popular  heart.  Fremont's  name 
formed  the  rallying  point  of  the  convention.  Wendell  Phillips 
and  Frederick  Douglass  sent  letters  to  it.  Mrs.  E.  Cadj 
Stanton  approved  of  the  convention  in  a  letter.  John  Coch- 
rane  presided,  and  was  honored  with  the  nomination  for  Vice- 
president,  on  the  ticket  with  General  Fremont.  The  platform 
adopted  dealt  briefly  with  generalities,  condemning  no  person 
save  by  implication,  and  containing  no  vital  element  which 
had  not  already  been  appropriated  by  the  mass  of  republicans 
throughout  the  nation.  Although  the  convention  was  organ- 


470  LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

ized  and  engineered  to  bring  an  influence  to  bear  upon  the 
Baltimore  Convention,  it  failed  to  have  influence  anywhere. 

The  saddest  feature  of  the  whole  movement  was  General 
Fremont's  connivance  with  it,  when  he  could  not  but  see  that 
its  only  influence  would  be  to  divide  the  friends  of  the  o-ov- 

*  D 

ernment;  and  the  eagerness  with  which  he  accepted  his  nomi 
nation.  He  opened  his  letter  of  acceptance  by  speaking  of 
the  convention  as  an  assemblage  of  the  "representatives  of 
the  people,"  when  he  ought  to  have  known  that  they  were 
nothing  of  the  kind.  General  Fremont,  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered  here,  was  the  republican  candidate  for  the  presidency 
eight  years  before,  receiving  the  honor  of  every  republican 
vote.  The  party  had  once  been  beaten  with  him  for  its  stand 
ard-bearer  ;  and,  if  he  had  been  thoroughly  magnanimous,  he 
would  have  remembered  it.  At  the  opening  of  the  war,  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  given  him  the  highest  military  commission  he  had 
it  in  his  power  to  bestow ;  and,  after  his  Missouri  failure,  he 
had  created  a  department  for  him.  In  this,  he  had  not  won 
distinguished  honor ;  and  when,  at  last,  he  was  subordinated 
to  another  General,  to  meet  the  conditions  of  a  great  emer 
gency,  he  threw  up  his  position  on  a  point  of  etiquette,  and 
retired  from  his  command.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  found  it  very 
difficult  to  please  the  General,  or  to  satisfy  his  friends.  The 
President  was  supposed  to  be  jealous  of  him ;  and,  if  the  read 
ers  of  the  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln  are  not  already  convinced  that 
such  jealousy  could  have  no  place  in  him,  no  present  attempt 
to  vindicate  his  motives  will  avail.  The  truth  was  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  entertained  none  but  the  kindliest  feelings  toward  him, 
though  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  had  great  confidence  in  his 
administrative  and  military  ability.  General  Fremont  knew, 
of  course,  that  the  little  band  of  men  gathered  at  Cleveland 
did  not  represent  the  republican  party ;  and  he  knew  that  the 
republican  party  loved  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  party  had  been  true 
to  General  Fremont,  even  if  they  had  been  disappointed  in 
him.  When  he  undertook  to  stab  the  official  reputation  of  the 
President,  he  was  engaged  in  the  attempt  to  ruin  the  chosen 
man  of  the  republican  party.  "  Had  Mr.  Lincoln  remained 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  471 

faithful  to  the  principles  he  was  elected  to  defend,  no  schism 
could  have  been  created,  and  no  contest  could  have  been  pos 
sible,"  said  the  General  in  his  letter.  Had  the  people  decided 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  faithless  to  the  principles  he  was  chosen 
to  defend?  Had  the  republican  party  so  decided?  "The 
ordinary  rights  secured  under  the  Constitution  and  laws  of 
the  country  have  been  violated,"  continued  the  General.  He 
charged  the  administration  with  managing  the  war  for  per 
sonal  ends,  with  " incapacity  and  selfishness,"  with  "disregard 
of  constitutional  rights,"  with  "  violation  of  personal  liberty 
and  the  liberty  of  the  press,"  and  with  "feebleness  and  want 
of  principle."  Among  the  objects  of  the  convention  itself, 
he  recognized  the  effort  "  to  arouse  the  attention  of  the  peo 
ple  "  to  certain  alleged  facts,  which  he  had  enumerated;  "  and 
to  bring  th;:  .n  to  realize  that,  while  we  are  saturating  southern 
soil  with  the  best  blood  of  the  country,  in  the  name  of  liberty, 
we  have  really  parted  with  it  at  home."  His  own  preference, 
he  declared :  would  be  to  aid  in  the  election  of  some  one,  other 
than  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  might  be  nominated  at  Baltimore,  "But 
if  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  nominated,"  said  he,  "  as  I  believe  it 
would  be  fatal  to  the  country  to  indorse  a  policy  and  renew  a 
power  which  has  cost  us  the  lives  of  thousands  of  men,  and 
needlessly  put  the  country  on  the  road  to  bankruptcy,  there 
will  be  no  other  alternative  but  to  organize  against  him  every 
element  of  conscientious  opposition,  with  the  view  to  prevent 
the  misfortune  of  his  re-election." 

General  Fremont,  virtuous  above  his  party,  virtuous  above 
Mr.  Lincoln,  quick  to  see  encroachments  upon  the  rights  of  the 
people  in  advance  of  the  people  themselves,  ready  to  find  per 
sonal  motives  in  the  management  of  the  war  by  the  adminis 
tration,  and  himself,  of  course,  acting  solely  upon  principle, 
failed  to  be  appreciated  by  those  whose  good  he  so  tenderly 
sought.  The  republican  party  gave  him  no  response,  other 
than  at  once  and  forever  to  count  him  out  of  its  confidence 
and  affections.  Convention,  platform,  and  candidates  were 
early  counted  among  political  lumber ;  and  whether  the  Gen 
eral  at  last  withdrew  from  the  field  as  a  matter  of  principle, 


472  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

or  from  personal  considerations,  does  not  appear.  He  with 
drew  his  name  from  the  list  of  candidates  before  the  people  in 
September,  after  it  became  evident  to  everybody  that  his  po 
sition  was  a  damage  to  the  national  cause  administering  a  part 
ing  thrust  at  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  words :  "  In  respect  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  I  continue  to  hold  exactly  the  sentiments  contained 
in  my  letter  of  acceptance.  I  consider  that  his  administration 
has  been  politically  and  financially  a  failure,  and  that  its  nec 
essary  continuance  is  a  cause  of  regret  for  the  country." 
General  Fremont,  an  old  favorite  of  the  republican  party,  and 
a  man  who  virtually  claimed  to  be  a  better  republican  than 
the  majority  of  his  party,  said  this,  and  said  it  with  a  purpose, 
or,  wantonly,  without  a  purpose,  when  he  knew  that  the  al 
ternative  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  was  the  election  of  General 
McClellan,  on  a  peace  platform,  supported  by  such  patriots  as 
Fernando  Wood  and  Clement  L.  Vallandigham. 

Four  days  before  the  date  appointed  for  the  assembling  of 
the  Baltimore  Convention,  a  meeting  was  held  in  New  York 
to  do  honor  to  General  Grant.  The  General  had  not  then 
concluded  the  war,  and  had  not,  in  fact,  met  with  decisive  suc 
cesses  with  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  There  was  no  special 
occasion  for  the  meeting,  except  to  influence  the  Baltimore 
Convention  in  the  selection  of  a  candidate.  To  cover  their 
real  intent,  they  invited  Mr.  Lincoln  to  attend;  and  he  sent 
the  following  letter  in  response : 

"  Gentlemen — Your  letter  inviting  me  to  be  present  at  a  mass  meet 
ing  of  the  loyal  citizens,  to  be  held  at  New  York  on  the  fourth  inst.,  for 
the  purpose  of  expressing  gratitude  to  Lieutenant-general  Grant  for 
his  signal  services,  was  received  yesterday.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
attend.  I  approve,  nevertheless,  whatever  may  tend  to  strengthen  and 
sustain  General  Grant  and  the  noble  armies  now  under  his  direction. 
My  previous  high  estimate  of  General  Grant  has  "been  maintained  and 
heightened  by  what  has  occurred  in  the  remarkable  campaign  he  is 
now  conducting;  while  the  magnitude  and  difficulty  of  the  task  before 
him  does  not  prove  less  than  I  expected.  He  and  his  brave  soldiers 
are  now  in  the  midst  of  their  great  trial;  and  I  trust  that,  at  your 
meeting,  you  will  so  shape  your  good  words  that  they  may  turn  to  men 
and  guns  moving  to  his  and  their  support. 

"  Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  473 

The  cordial  tone  of  the  President  toward  the  General,  ef 
fectually  neutralized  the  object  of  the  meeting  ;  and,  when  the 
Baltimore  Convention  met,  on  the  eighth  of  June,  there  was 
no  name  but  that  of  the  President  that  found  adherents. 
Many  of  the  delegates  had  come  instructed  to  vote  for  him, 
from  the  conventions  which  sent  them.  Rev.  Robert  J.  Breck- 
inridge  of  Kentucky,  a  stern  and  eloquent  old  Unionist,  was 
chosen  temporary  chairman ;  and  Hon.  William  Dennison  of 
Ohio  was  elected  to  be  the  permanent  president  of  the  con 
vention.  On  the  following  day,  Mr.  Henry  J.  Raymond  of 
New  York,  as  chairman  of  the  committee  on  resolutions,  pre 
sented  the  platform,  which  was  adopted  with  warm  approval, 
and  with  entire  unanimity.  It  pledged  the  convention,  and 
those  it  represented,  to  aid  the  government  in  quelling  by 
force  of  arms  the  rebellion  then  raging  against  its  authority; 
approved  the  determination  of  the  government  not  to  com 
promise  with  rebels  in  arms ;  indorsed  the  acts  and  proclama 
tions  against  slavery,  and  advocated  a  constitutional  amend 
ment  abolishing  it;  returned  thanks  to  the  soldiers  of  the 
Union  armies,  and  declared  that  the  nation  owed  a  permanent 
provision  for  those  disabled  by  the  war ;  approved  of  the  ad 
ministration  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  acts  and  measures  which 
he  had  adopted  for  the  preservation  of  the  nation  against  its 
open  and  secret  foes;  declared  that  the  government  owed 
protection  to  all  its  soldiers,  without  distinction  of  color ;  af 
firmed  that  the  national  faith,  pledged  for  the  redemption  of 
the  public  debt,  must  be  kept  inviolate;  and  expressed  ap 
proval  of  the  position  taken  by  the  government  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States  can  .never  regard  with  indifference  the 
attempt  of  any  European  power  to  overthrow  by  force,  or  to 
supplant  by  fraud,  the  institutions  of  any  republican  govern 
ment  on  the  Western  Continent. 

After  the  adoption  of  the  resolutions,  came  the  ballot  for  a 
presidential  candidate.  At  the  first  ballot,  every  vote  was 
given  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  except  the  twenty-two  from  Missouri, 
which,  under  instructions,  were  given  for  General  Grant ;  but 
the  nomination  was  made  unanimous  on  the  motion  of  one  of 


474  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  Missouri  delegates.  Mr.  Hamlin,  the  incumbent  of  the 
vice-presidential  office,  though  an  able  and  excellent  man,  was, 
from  motives  of  policy,  not  regarded  by  many  as  the  best  can 
didate  for  that  office ;  and  Andrew  Johnson  of  Tennessee  re 
ceived  the  nomination. 

A  single  resolution  in  the  platrorm,  to  wnich  no  allusion 
is  made  in  the  foregoing  summary  of  its  leading  features, 
covertly  demanded  a  change  in  the  cabinet.  The  words, 
"Wo  deem  it  essential  to  the  general  welfare  that  harmony 
should  prevail  in  our  national  councils,  and  we  regard  as 
worthy  of  confidence  and  official  trust  those  only  who  cor 
dially  indorse  the  principles  proclaimed  in  these  resolutions," 
were  intended  as  an  intimation  that  the  convention  would  like 
to  have  the  President  dismiss  the  Postmaster-general,  Mont 
gomery  Blair.  The  resolution  was  probably  a  concession  to 
the  Loyal  Leagues,  which,  originally  friendly  to  the  nomina 
tion  of  Mr.  Chase,  took  up  the  differences  which  were  under 
stood  to  exist  between  these  two  members  of  the  cabinet,,  and 
demanded  that.  Mr.  Blair  should  retire.  A  committee  con 
sisting  of  John  M.  Ashley,  John  .Covode  and  George  S. 
.Boutwell,  waited  upon  the  President,  on  one  occasion,  to  urge 
Mr.  Blair's  dismissal ;  and  on  that  occasion  Mr.  Lincoln  said 
that,  if  he  should  be  re-elected,  he  should  probably  make 
some  changes  in  his  cabinet — a  reply  which  they  took  as  an 
assent  to  their  request,  and  so  reported  to  the  body  that  sent 
them.  "When  the  resolution  in  question  appeared  in  the  plat 
form,  Mr.  Blair,  understanding  it,  placed  his  resignation  in 
the  hands  of  the  President,  who  delayed  his  acceptance  of  it 
until  circumstances  rendered  the  step  desirable. 

Washington  was  but  a  short  distance  from  Baltimore;  and 
Governor  Dennison,  the  president  of  the  convention,  waited 
upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  accompanied  by  a,  committee,  to  inform 
him  of  his  nomination.  After  receiving  the  formal  address  of 
that  gentleman,  with  a  copy  of  the  resolutions  which  had 
been  adopted,  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

"  Having  served  four  years  in  the  depths  of  a  great  and  yet  unended 
national  peril,  I  can  view  this  call  to  a  second  term  in  nowise  more  flat- 


LIFE  OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  475 

tertng  to  myself  than  as  an  expression  of  the  public  judgment  that  I 
may  better  finish  a  difficult  work,  in  which  I  have  labored  from  the  first, 
than  could  any  one  less  severely  schooled  to  the  task.  In  this  view, 
and  with  assured  reliance  on  that  Almighty  Ruler  who  has  so  graciously 
sustained  us  thus  far,  and  with  increased  gratitude  to  the  generous  peo 
ple  for  their  continued  confidence,  I  accept  the  renewed  trust,  with  its 
yet  onerous  and  perplexing  duties  and  responsibilities." 

During  the  same  day,  the  President  was  waited  upon  by  a 
committee  of  the  Union  League,  which  came  with  a  tender 
of  the  congratulations,  and  a  pledge  of  the  confidence  and 
support,  of  that  organization ;  and,  in  the  evening,  by  the  Ohio 
delegation  in  the  convention.  To  both  these  deputations  he 
addressed  brief  remarks,  in  the  spirit  of  those  quoted  as  ad 
dressed  to  the  committee  of  the  convention.  Some  days  sub 
sequently,  he  received  the  formal  notification,  by  letter,  of  his 
nomination,  to  which,  on  the  twenty-seventh  of  June,  he  re 
plied  as  follows: 

"Gentlemen: — Your  letter  of  the  fourteenth  hist.,  formally  notifying 
me  that  I  have  been  nominated  by  the  convention  you  represent  for  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States,  for  four  years  from  the  fourth  of  March 
next,  has  been  received.  The  nomination  is  gratefully  accepted,  as  the 
resolutions  of  the  convention,  called  the  platform,  are  heartily  approved. 
While  the  resolution  in  regard  to  the  supplanting  of  republican  gov 
ernments  upon  the  Western  Continent  is  fully  concurred  in,  there 
might  be  misunderstanding  were  I  not  to  say  that  the  position  of  the 
government  in  relation  to  the  action  of  France  in  Mexico,  as  assumed 
through  the  State  Department,  and  indorsed  by  the  convention  among 
the  measures  and  acts  of  the  Executive,  will  be  faithfully  maintained 
so  long  as  the  state  of  facts  shall  leave  that  position  pertinent  and  ap 
plicable,  I  am  especially  gratified  that  the  soldier  and  seaman  were  not 
forgotten  by  the  convention,  as  they  forever  must  and  will  be  remem 
bered  by  the  grateful  country,  for  whose  salvation  they  devote  their 
lives. 

"  Thanking  you  for  the  kind  and  complimentary  terms  in  which  yon 
have  communicated  the  nomination  and  other  proceedings  of  the  con 
vention,  I  subscribe  myself, 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

It  was  still  more  than  two  months  before  the  assembling  of 
the  Democratic  Convention,  announced  to  be  held  at  Chicago 


476  LIFE   OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

on  the  twenty-ninth  of  August.  This  convention  had  been 
deferred,  with  the  confident  expectation,  if  not  the  hope,  that 
the  events  of  the  war  would  prepare  the  people  to  accept  a 
peace  policy,  and  leave  the  party  free  to  take  direct  issue  with 
the  administration.  During  this  interval,  a  peculiar  change 
came  over  the  spirit  of  the  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Opening 
the  campaign  with  perfect  confidence  concerning  the  results, 
a  feeling  of  distrust  and  doubt  crept  over  them ;  and,  without 
any  apparent  cause,  the  thought  became  prevalent  that  a  mis 
take  had  been  made  in  the  nomination.  This  arose  partly 
from  the  consciousness  that  the  country  was  really  tired  of  a 
war  of  which  they  saw  neither  the  end  nor  the  signs  of  its 
approach;  and  partly  from  the  uncertainty  which  prevailed 
concerning  the  action  of  the  Democratic  Convention,  which 
was  pretty  sure  to  be  based  upon  the  results  of  military  move 
ments  in  progress,  and  of  dubious  issue.  It  was  one  of  those 
strange  and  unaccountable  contagions  of  public  feeling  and 
opinion  which  start,  no  man  knows  where ;  lead,  n.o  man 
knows  whither;  and  die,  at  last,  by  no  man's  hand.  Men 
did  not  catch  it  from  newspapers,  did  not  contract  it  from 
speeches,  did  not  imbibe,  or  absorb  it  in  facts ;  but,  simultane 
ously  and  universally,  the  friends  of  the  administration  were 
affected  with  a  distrust  of  the  future  and  a  doubt  of  the  wis 
dom  of  their  choice. 

There  were  still  divisions  in  their  ranks,  but  these  were  not 
formidable.  Occasion  was  taken  by  the  opposition  press  to 
magnify  every  mistake  of  the  President  and  to  condemn  every 
doubtful  measure.  One  Arguelles,  convicted  in  Cuba  of  sell 
ing  part  of  a  cargo  of  negroes,  illicitly  landed,  which,  as  an 
officer  of  the  Spanish^army,  he  had  captured,  was  permitted  to 
be  taken  from  New  York,  and  carried  back  to  the  island. 
This  act — a  thoroughly  righteous  one  in  the  light  of  humanky 
and  justice — was  regarded  by  the  opposition  as  a  denial  of 
the  right  of  asylum;  and  a  good  deal  of  disturbance  was 
created  by  it. 

Early  in  July,  Congress  completed  its  action  upon  a  plan 
of  reconstruction,  which  it  embodied  in  an  elaborate  bill.  In 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.    ,  477 

the  preparation  of  this  bill,  Henry  Winter  £>avis  of  Maryland 
and  Benjamin  F.  Wade  of  Ohio  were  prominently  active. 
A  good  deal  of  time  and  discussion  had  been  expended  upon 
it,  but  it  was  passed  and  sent  to  the  President  less  than  one 
hour  before  the  close  of  the  session.  He  failed  to  approve  it, 
and,  on  the  eighth  of  July,  issued  a  proclamation  on  the  sub 
ject.  In  this  proclamation,  the  President  declared  that  he  waa 
unprepared,  by  a  formal  approval  of  the  bill,  to  commit  him 
self  to  any  single  plan  of  reconstruction,  or  to  set  aside  the 
free  state  governments  already  formed  in  Arkansas  and  Lou 
isiana  on  other  plans.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  willing  that 
the  plan  embodied  in  the  bill  should  be  recognized  as  one 
among  others ;  and  so  promulgated  the  bill  itself,  as  a  part  of 
his  proclamation.  To  the  people  of  any  rebel  state  who  should 
adopt  the  plan  provided  by  the  bill,  he  pledged  the  executive 
assistance.  The  action  of  the  President  in  this  matter  ex 
ceedingly  offended  Messrs.  Wade  and  Davis,  who  joined  in  a 
bitter  manifesto  against  him,  and  published  it  in  the  New 
York  Tribune  of  *  August  fifth.  "The  President,"  they  de 
clared,  "  by  preventing  this  bill  from  becoming  a  law,  holds 
the  electoral  votes  of  the  rebel  states  at  the  dictation  of  his 
personal  ambition."  Furthermore :  "  A  more  studied  outrage 
on  the  legislative  authority  of  the  people,  has  never  been  per 
petrated."  In  its  attack  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's  motives,  it  was 
an  offensive  paper,  and  pained  the  friends  of  the  administration 
no  less  than  it  rejoiced  its  enemies. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  himself,  never  permitted  attacks  of  this  char 
acter  to  trouble  him.  If  they  were  very  bitter,  he  did  not 
read  them  at  all ;  and  many  men  of  mark  who  wrote  things 
for  his  particular  eye,  failed  of  their  object  utterly  by  his 
refusal  to  read,  or  listen  to,  their  fulminations.  After  the 
Wade  and  Davis  manifesto  was  issued,  it  was,  on  one  occasion, 
the  subject  of  conversation  between  him  and  a  number  of 
gentlemen  who  had  called  at  the  White  House.  After  all 
the  gentlemen  had  retired,  save  one,  who  was  an  intimate  per 
sonal  friend,  Mr.  L.iicolri  turned  to  him,  and  said :  "  The 
Wade  and  Davis  matter  troubles  me  very  little.  Indeed,  I 


478  LIFE   OF  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN. 

feel  a  good  deal  about  it  as  the  old  man  did  about  his  cneese, 
when  his  very  smart  boy  found,  by  the  aid  of  a  microscope, 
that  it  was  full  of  maggots.  '  Oh  father ! '  exclaimed  the  boy, 
4  how  can  you  eat  that  stuff? .  Just  look  in  here,  and  see  'em 
wriggle ! '  The  old  man  took  another  mouthful,  and,  putting 
his  teeth  into  it,  replied  grimly :  '  let  'em  wriggle ! ' ' 

The  evident  anxiety  of  the  people  for  peace  was  a  subject 
of  deep  solicitude  with  the  administration.  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
no  faith  in  the  desire  of  the  Richmond  government  for  any 
peace  which  would  be  accepted  by  the  loyal  people  of  the 
country.  It  was,  however,  for  the  interest  of  the  rebels  to 
create  a  peace  party  in  the  northern  states,  in  order  to  weaken 
the  administration ;  and  it  was  their  policy  to  appear  to  be 
ready  to  make  or  receive  propositions  for  peace.  There  were 
two  things  to  which  the  administration  was,  in  all  good  faith, 
irrevocably  committed,  viz:  the  restoration  of  the  Union  un 
der  the  Constitution,  and  the  abolition  of  slavery.  "Without 
being  false  to  his  oath  of  office  and  to  the  American  people 
who  had  poured  out  life  and  treasure  to  save  the*nation,  and 
without  being  faithless  to  an  oppressed  race  to  whom  he  had 
pledged  emancipation,  Mr.  Lincoln  could  entertain  no  propo 
sitions  for  peace,  and  could  make  none,  which  were  not  based 
on  the  essential  conditions  of  national  unity  and  freedom  to 
the  blacks.  This  state  of  facts  tied  his  hands ;  yet  he  waa 
made  by  his  enemies  to  appear  to  be  averse  to  peace;  and 
some  of  his  friends,  of  the  more  timid  sort,  felt  that,  unless  he 
could  be  T^nred  in  a  different  light  before  the  people,  his 
chances  of  re-election  were  slender. 

On  the  fifth  of  July,  one  "W.  C.  Jewett  wrote  a  letter  from 
Niagara  Falls  to  Horace  Greeley  of  New  York,  stating  that 
there  were,  in  Canada,  two  ambassadors  of  the  rebel  govern 
ment,  with  full  powers  to  negotiate  a  peace ;  and  requesting 
that  Mr.  Greeley  proceed  to  Niagara  for  a  conference,  or  se- 
cure-from  the  President  a  safe-conduct  for  them  to  New  York. 
Mr.  Greeley  inclosed  the  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  remarking  that 
he  thought  the  matter  deserved  attention.  He  also  wrote :  "  I 
venture  to  remind  you  that  our  bleeding,  bankrupt,  almost 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  479 

dying  country,  longs  for  peace — shudders  at  the  prospect  of 
fresh  conscriptions,  of  further  wholesale  devastations,  and  of 
new  rivers  of  human  blood;  and  a  wide-spread  conviction 
that  the  government  and  its  supporters  are 'not  anxious  for 
peace,  and  do  not  improve  proffered  opportunities  to  achieve 
it,  is  doing  great  harm  now,  and  is  morally  certain,  unless  re 
moved,  to  do  far  greater  in  the  approaching  elections."  Mr. 
Greeley  subjoined  to  his  letter  a  plan  of  adjustment  which  he 
deemed  proper  and  practicable,  the  first  two  items  of  which 
covered  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the  abolition  of  slav 
ery.  Certainly,  if  these  were  leading  and  essential  parts  of 
the  plan,  it  could  make  no  difference  whether  they  were  made 
conditions  precedent  to  negotiation,  or  essentials  in  any  ad 
justment  to  be  procured  by  negotiation. 

The  President  replied  to  this  communication,  on  the  ninth : 
"  If  you  can  find  any  person,  anywhere,  professing  to  have  any 
proposition  of  Jefferson  Davis,  in  writing,  embracing  the  res 
toration  of  the  Union  and  abandonment  of  slavery,  whatever 
else  it  embraces,  say  to  him  that  he  may  come  to  me  with  you." 
On  the  thirteenth  of  July,  Mr.  Greeley  wrote  to  the  President, 
stating  that  he^had  information  upon  which  he  could  rely,  that 
two  persons,  duly  commissioned  and  empowered  to  negotiate 
for  a  peace,  were  not  far  from  Niagara  Falls,  and  were  desirous 
to  confer  with  the  President,  or  such  persons  as  he  might  ap 
point.  Their  names  were  Clement  C.  Clay  of  Alabama  and 
Jacob  Thompson  of  Mississippi.  If  these  persons  could  be 
permitted  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln,  they  wished  a  safe-conduct  for 
themselves  and  for  George  N.  Saunders  to  Washington.  In 
the  course  of  the  letter,  Mr.  Greeley  said :  "  I  am,  of  course, 
quite  other  than  sanguine  that  a  peace  can  now  be  made ;  but 
I  am  quite  sure  that  a  frank,  earnest,  anxious  effort  to  termi 
nate  the  war  on  honorable  terms,  would  immensely  strengthen 
the  government  in  case  of  its  failure,  and  would  help  us  in  the 
eyes  of  the  civilized  world."  George  N.  Saunders  wrote  to 
Mr.  Greeley  on  the  twelfth,  that  he  was  authorized  to  say  that 
Mr.  Clay  and  Professor  Holcombe  of  Virginia  were  ready, 
with  himself,  to  go  to  Washington,  provided  they  should  have 


480  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

a  safe-conduct.  To  Mr.  Greeley's  letter  of  the  thirteenth,  Mr. 
Lincoln  replied  on  the  fifteenth:  "I  am  disappointed  that  you 
have  not  already  reached  here  with  those  commissioners.  If 
they  would  consent  to  come  on  being  shown  my  letter  to  you 
of  the  ninth  inst.,  show  that  and  this  to  them ;  and,  if  they 
will  consent  to  come  on  the  terms  stated  in  the  former,  bring 
them.  I  not  only  intend  a  sincere  effort  for  peace,  but  I  intend 
that  you  shall  be  a  personal  witness  that  it  is  made."  This 
note  was  taken  to  Mr.  Greeley  by  Major  Hay,  who,  having 
been  empowered  by  telegraph  to  write  a  safe-conduct  for  the 
commissioners,  embraced  in  his  paper  the  names  of  Messrs. 
Clay,  Thompson,  Holcombe,  and  Saunders.  With  this,  Mr. 
Greeley  started  for  Niagara  Falls,  and,  on  arriving  there  on 
the  seventeenth,  addressed  to  the  first  three  of  these  gentlemen, 
at  the  Clifton  House,  on  the  Canada  side  of  the  river,  a  note, 
stating  that  he  was  informed  that  they  were  duly  accredited 
from  Eichmond  as  the  bearers  of  propositions  looking  to  the 
establishment  of  peace ;  that  he  understood,  also,  that  they 
desired  to  visit  Washington  in  the  fulfillment  of  their  mission, 
and  that  they  wished  George  1ST.  Saunders  to  accompany 
them.  If  these  were  the  facts,  he  declared  himself  authorized 
by  the  President  to  offer  them  a  safe-conduct  and  to  accom 
pany  them. 

On  the  following  day,  this  note  was  replied  to  by  Messrs. 
Clay  and  Holcombe,  who  frankly  acknowledged  that  the  safe- 
conduct  of  the  President  had  been  offered  under  a  misappre 
hension  of  facts.  They  were  not  accredited  from  Richmond 
at  all,  as  the  bearers  of  propositions  looking  to  the  establish 
ment  of  peace.  They  professed,  however,  to  be  in  the  confi 
dential  employ  of  their  government,  and  to  be  familiar  with  its 
wishes  and  opinions  on  the  subject;  and  they  declared  that,  if 
the  circumstances  disclosed  in  the  correspondence  were  com 
municated  to  Richmond,  they,  or  others,  would  at  once  be 
invested  with  the  requisite  authority  to  negotiate.  It  should 
be  remembered,  at  this  point,  that  these  men  had  not  been 
made  fully  acquainted  with  the  conditions  on  which  the  Pres 
ident  had  offered  them  a  safe-conduct.  Mr.  Greeley  had  evi- 


LIFE   OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

forgotten  to  inform  them  concerning  the  terms  of  Me. 
Lincoln's  letter  of  the  ninth,  in  which  he  promised  a  safe- 
conduct  only  to  those  who  should  be  duly  accredited  with 
propositions  for  peace,  conditioned  upon  the  restoration  of 
the  Union  and  the  abolition  of  slavery.  These,  it  must  be 
remembered,  were  the  original  and  unaltered  conditions  on 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  consented  to  receive  them. 

Mr.  Greeley  replied  to  Messrs.  Clay  and  Holcombe,  on  the 
eighteenth,  that  the  state  of  facts  differed  materially  from  Mr. 
Lincoln's  understanding  of  them,  and  that  he  should  telegraph 
for  fresh  instructions,  which  he  did  at  once.  On  receiving 
the  dispatch,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  Major  Hay  to  Niagara,  with 
the  following  letter: 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  Washington,  July  18th,  1864. 

"TO  WHOM  IT  MAY  CONCERN: — 

"  Any  proposition  which  embraces  the  restoration  of  peace,  the 
integrity  of  the  whole  Union,  and  the  abandonment  of  slavery,  and 
which  comes  by  and  with  an  authority  that  can  control' the  armies  novr 
at  war  against  the  United  States,  will  be  received  and  considered  by 
the  Executive  government  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be  met  on  lib 
eral  terms  on  substantial  and  collateral  points;  and  the  bearer  or  bear- 
«ra  thereof  shall  have  safe-conduct  both  ways. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 

Major  Hay,  on  his  arrival  at  Niagara,  went  with  Mr.  Gree 
ley  to  the  Clifton  House,  and  delivered  the  above  missive  to- 
Professor  Holcombe.  Then  Mr.  Greeley  returned  to  New 
York,  where  he  soon  afterwards  received  the  response  of 
Messrs.  Clay  and  Holcombe.  Their  letter  was  exactly  what 
might  have  been  expected.  They  had  supposed  that  a  safe- 
conduct  had  been  offered  them  on  the  ground  that  they  were 
"  duly  accredited  from  Richmond,  as  bearers  of  propositions 
looking  to  the  establishment  of  peace ; "  and,  when  they  found, 
conditions  insisted  on  precedent  to  negotiation,  they  could  see 
onlv  a  "sudden  and  entire  change  m  the  views  of  the  Presi- 

*  •  O 

dent,"  and  a  "rude  withdrawal  of  a  courteous  overture  for 
negotiation,  at  the  moment  it  was  likely  to  be  accepted."     It 
will  be  noticed  by  the  reader  that  the  President  had  made  no 
31 


482  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

change  whatever  in  his  conditions  from  those  first  offered,  and 
that  the  letter  of  Clay  and  Holcombc  left  him  in  a  false  posi 
tion.  Nothing  appears  in  the  correspondence,  thus  far  pub 
lished,  to  show  that  Mr.  Greeley  ever  communicated  to  the 
commissioners  the  President's  original  conditions  for  a  safe- 
conduct  and  an  interview. 

In  order  to  place  himself  in  a  just  position  before  the  coun 
try,  Mr.  Lincoln  applied  to  Mr.  Greeley  for  permission  to 
publish  the  entire  correspondence,  omitting  certain  unessential 
passages  in  Mr.  Greeley's  letters,  which  represented  the  coun 
try  as  being  on  the  verge  of  destruction,  intimated  the  pos 
sibility  of  a  northern  insurrection,  and  alluded  to  the  impor 
tance  of  affecting  favorably  the  North  Carolina  election.  Mr, 
Greeley  refused  to  have  the  correspondence  published,  unless 
these  passages,  which  Mr.  Lincoln  thought  would  have  a  mis 
chievous  effect  upon  the  public  mind,  should  be  retained.  For 
the  sake  of  the  country  and  its  cause,  Mr.  Lincoln  submitted ; 
but,  determined  to  stand  right  in  history,  he  sent  a  note  to 
Henry  J.  Eaymond,  editor  of  the  New  York  Times,  under 
date  of  August  15,  1864,  as  follows: 

"Mr  DEAR  SIR: — I  have  proposed  to  Mr.  Greeley  that  the  Niagara 
correspondence  be  published,  suppressing  only  the  parts  of  his  letters 
over  which  the  red  pencil  is  drawn  in  the  copy  which  I  herewith  send. 
He  declines  giving  his  consent  to  the  publication  of  his  letters,  unless 
these  parts  be  published  with  the  rest.  I  have  concluded  that  it  is  bet 
ter  for  me  to  submit,  for  the  time,  to  the  consequences  of  the  false  po 
sition  in  which  I  consider  he  has  placed  me,  than  to  subject  the  country 
to  the  consequences  of  publishing  these  discouraging  and  injurious 
parts.  I  send  you  this,  and  the  accompanying  copy,  not  for  publication, 
but  merely  to  explain  to  you,  and  that  you  preserve  them  until  their 
proper  time  shall  come. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 

So  Mr.  Lincoln  went  through  the  canvass  with  the  imputa 
tion  resting  upon  him  of  having  pursued  a  vacillating  course 
with  the  unaccredited  and  irresponsible  commissioners,  and  of 
repelling  negotiations  for  peace.  All  the  capital  that  could 
be  made  against  him  from  the  materials  furnished  by  the  affair, 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  483 

was  assiduously  used  by  the  opposition  and  by  the  rebels 
themselves. 

The  time  for  holding  the  National  Democratic  Convention 
came  at  last.  Still  the  fortunes  of  the  military  campaign 
were  undecided ;  and  the  country  was  groaning  under  efforts 
to  furnish  men  for  the  reinforcement  of  the  armies.  But  the 
President  found  aid  in  unexpected  quarters.  By  the  direction 
of  that  Providence  in  which  he  so  implicitly  believed,  every 
treasonable  and  personally  inimical  element  in  the  nation  be 
came  his  ally.  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  returned  to  the  coun 
try  before  his  time ;  and  the  President  permitted  him  to  re 
main,  unmolested.  He  became  one  of  the  pets  of  his  party; 
and,  attending  the  Chicago  Convention  as  a  delegate,  was 
chosen  chairman  of  the  committee  on  resolutions.  Gov 
ernor  Seymour  of  New  York,  his  sympathizing  friend,  was 
the  president  of  the  convention.  Congressman  Long  of 
Ohio  was  also  there,  with  a  full  representation  of  all  those 
who  had,  from  the  first,  opposed  the  war,  and  sympathized 
with  the  rebellion.  The  platform  adopted  was  composed 
largely  of  negations,  touching  the  policy  of  the  administra 
tion;  but  one  thing  it  distinctly  demanded,  viz:  "a  cessa 
tion  of  hostilities."  The  candidates  nominated  were  General 
George  B.  McClellan  for  President,  and  George  H.  Pendle- 
ton  of  Ohio  for  Vice-President.  General  McClellan  was 
nominally  a  was  democrat,  and  Mr.  Pendleton  really  a  peace 
democrat.  Both  wings  of  the  party  were  thus  accommodated, 
while  the  platform  was  all  that  the  most  extreme  of  peace 
men  could  ask.  But  the  convention  did  not  dissolve ;  it  ad 
journed,  "  subject  to  be  called  at  any  time  and  place  that  the 
executive  national  committee  shall  designate."  The  act  was 
a  threat,  and  betrayed  the  entertainment  of  possibilities  and 
incidental  purposes  not  entirely  creditable  to  the  patriotism  of 
the  convention.  Mr.  Vallandigham's  tongue  was  busy,  in  and 
out  of  the  convention.  He  was  treated  as  a  man  who  had 
Buffered  persecution  for  the  sake  of  democratic  truth.  He 
moved  that  the  nomination  of  McClellan  be  made  unanimous. 
He  was  active  in  all  the  affairs  of  the  occasion ;  and  he  did 


484  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN, 

more  than  any  other  man  to  destroy  the  prospects  of  the 
democratic  party. 

The  spirit  manifested  by  the  demagogues  who  managed  this 
convention,  was  not  the  spirit  of  the  people,  and  not  the  spirit 
of  the  democratic  masses.  The  majority  of  the  democratic 
party  had  supported  the  war.  Many  of  the  best  officers  in 
the  army  were  democrats,  thoroughly  devoted  to  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  rebellion  by  military  means.  The  voice  of  the  con 
vention  was,  that  all  that  had  been  expended  in  the  war,  of 
life  and  treasure,  should  be  declared  a  waste.  The  best  illus 
tration  of  the  spirit  of  the  convention  was  found  in  the  fact 
that,  when  it  was  announced  that  Fort  Morgan  had  surren 
dered,  the  news  fell  upon  it  like  a  pall.  It  awoke  no  cheers ; 
and  was  so  evidently  unwelcome  intelligence,  although  a  great 
national  success,  that  the  masses  of  the  party  were  disgusted. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  acts,  intentions  and  spirit  of 
the  convention,  this  one  thing  was  certain :  that,  from  the  time 
of  its  adjournment,  no  sensible  politician  had  any  doubt  of 
the  overwhelming  triumph  of  the  administration  in  the  elec 
tion.  The  cloud  was  lifted  from  the  republican  party  at  once , 
and  the  democratic  leaders  themselves,  though  they  relaxed  no 
effort,  confessed  that  they  were  beaten,  almost  from  the  start. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  September,  Mr.  Blair  retired  from 
the  cabinet,  in  consequence  of  an  intimation  from  the  Presi 
dent  that  his  retirement  would  be  a  relief  to  him:  It  will  be 
remembered  that  the  Baltimore  platform  contained  a  resolu 
tion  which  was  intended  to  indicate  a  desire  on  the  part  cf  the 
convention  that  Mr.  Blair  should  leave  the  cabinet ,  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  did  not,  probably,  have  any  reference  to  this  resolution 
in  his  action,  Mr.  Blair  had  made  an  excellent  Postmaster- 
general—one  of  the  very  best  who  had  administered  the  af 
fairs  of  his  department ;  and  it  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy  to 
adhere  to  his  friends,  and  especially  to  those  who  did  their 
duty.  But  there  was  a  difficulty  between  Mr,  Blair  and 
Henry  Winter  Davis  of  Maryland,  which,  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
judgment,  endangered  the  adoption  of  the  free  state  constitu 
tion  in  that  commonwealth.  He  could  solve  the  difficulty, 


"r  -4  V  ^  £         > 

lNCOLN. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   ^ 

and  help  the  cause,  by  permitting  Mr.  Blair^hose  resigna 
tion  had  been  in  his  hands  for  months,  to  retirer^TKePresi- 
dent  and  the  Secretary  parted  excellent  friends;  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  showed  his  good  will  toward  the  retiring  officer,  by  ap 
pointing  to  his  place  ex-Governor  William  Dennison  of  Ohio, 
one  of  Mr.  Blair's  most  intimate  personal  and  family  friends. 
A  few  days  before  this  change  in  the  cabinet,  Mr.  Lincoln 
wrote  a  letter  to  a  convention  of  the  friends  of  the  new  con 
stitution  in  Maryland,  held  in  Baltimore  on  the  eighteenth  of 
September,  in  which  he  expressed  his  earnest  solicitude  for  its 
adoption.  "It  needs  not  be  a  secret,"  said  he,  "and  I  presume 
it  is  no  secret,  that  I  wish  success  to  this  provision."  (The 
provision  extinguishing  slavery).  "I  desire  it  on  every  con 
sideration.  I  wish  to  see  all  men  free.  I  wish  the  national 
prosperity  of  the  already  free,  which  I  feel  sure  the  extinction 
of  slavery  would  bring."  The  event  he  so  much  desired  was 
consummated  by  a  popular  vote,  on  the  eighth  and  ninth  of 
October;  and  the  President  was  serenaded  by  the  loyal  Mary- 
landers  in  Washington,  as  an  expression  of  their  satisfaction 
and  their  congratulations.  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  with  a 
speech.  An  extract  will  show  something  of  the  subjects  of 
public  discussion  at  the  time,  as  well  as  reveal  the  President's 
relation  to  them: 

"Something  said  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  in  his  recent  speech  at 
Auburn,  has  been  construed  by  some  into  a  threat  that,  if  I  shall  be 
beaten  at  the  election,  I  will,  between  then  and  the  constitutional  end 
of  my  term,  do  what  I  may  be  able,  to  ruin  the  government.  Others  re 
gard  the  fact  that  the  Chicago  Convention  adjourned  not  sine  (He,  but 
to  meet  again,  if  called  to  do  so  by  a  particular  individual,  as  the  inti 
mation  of  a  purpose  that,  if  their  nominee  shall  be  elected,  he  will  at 
once  seize  control  of  the  government.  I  hope  the  good  people  will  per 
mit  themselves  to  suffer  no  uneasiness  on  either  point.  I  am  struggling 
to  maintain  the  government,  not  to  overthrow  it.  I  am  struggling 
specially  to  prevent  others  from  overthrowing  it.  I,  therefore,  say  that, 
if  I  live,  I  shall  remain  President  until  the  fourth  of  next  March,  and 
that  whoever  shall  be  constitutionally  elected  in  November  shall  be 
duly  installed  as  President  on  the  fourth  of  March;  and,  in  the  interval, 
I  shall  do  my  utmost  that  whoever  is  to  hold  the  helm  for  the  next 
voyage,  shall  start  with  the  best  possible  chance  of  saving  the  ship." 


486  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  October  elections  indicated  the  inevitable  result  of 
the  presidential  canvass;  and  the  successful  movements  of  the 
armies  confirmed  the  prospects  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  signal  tri 
umph.  The  efforts  of  the  rebels  south  of  the  Union  lines, 
and  over  the  Canada  boundary,  to  assist  the  peace  party,  and 
furnish  capital  for  its  operations^  aided  by  organizations  of 
disloyal  elements  within  the  loyal  states,  not  only  failed 'of 
their  object,  but  helped  to  rally  the  popular  feeling  to  the  side 
of  the  administration. 

An  unpleasant  incident  of  the  canvass  was  the  result  of  an 
interview  between  Mr;  Lincoln  and  a  committee  of  the  oppo 
sition  party  in  Tennessee.  Andrew  Johnson,  the  present 
President  of  the  United  States,  was  then  military  governor 
of  that  state ;  and  under  his  sanction  a  convention  was  called, 
to  reorganize  the  state,  that  it  might  take  a  part  in  the  pres 
idential  election.  This  convention  prescribed  the  form  of  an 
oath,  that  the  body  deemed  proper  for  those  to  take  who  de 
sired  to  vote.  Governor  Johnson  ordered  the  election  to  be 
held,  in  accordance  with  the  plan  of  the  convention;  and 
adopted  its  oath.  The  oath  was  one  which  no  heartily  loyal 
man  would  refuse  to  take,  unless  he  should  object  to  the  fol 
lowing  clause :  "  I  will  cordially  oppose  all  armistices  and  ne 
gotiations  for  peace  with  rebels  in  arms,  until  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  all  laws  and  proclamations  made  in 
pursuance  thereof,  shall  be  established  over  all  the  people  of 
every  state  and  territory,  embraced  within  the  national  Union." 
No  man,  of  course,  who  heartily  believed  in  the  peace  doctrine 
of  the  Chicago  platform  could  take  the  oath ;  and  there  were 
evidently  many  men  in  Tennessee  who  would  not  subscribe  to 
another  clause — men  who  could  not  heartily  say:  "I  sincerely 
rejoice  in  the  triumph  of  the  armies  and  navies  of  the  United 
States." 

Against  this  oath,  a  committee  of  General  McClellan'a 
friends  protested ;  and  they  bore  their  protest  to  the  President. 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  receive  the  paper  good-naturedly.  He 
undoubtedly  regarded  it  as  an  attempt  to  get  him  into  diffi 
culty,  and  to  make  political  capital  against  him.  He  had  no 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  487 

faith  in  the  genuine  loyalty  of  the  men  who  would  not  take 
the  oath.  He  furthermore  felt  that  it  was  a  matter  with 
which  he  had  no  right  to  interfere,  and  believed  it  to  be  one 
which  Mr.  John  Lellyett,  the  bearer  of  the  protest,  knew  he 
would  not  undertake  to  control.  Under  these  circumstances, 
and  in  the  condition  of  nervous  *and  mental  irritability,  to 
which  all  the  latter  part  of  his  life  was  subject,  he  gave  a 
reply  which  was  not  at  all  in  his  usual  manner,  and  which 
pained  his  friends  quite  as  much  as  it  rejoiced  his  foes.  The 
answer,  as  reported  by  Mr.  Lellyett,  was :  "  I  expect  to  let  the 
friends  of  George  B.  McClellan  manage  their  side  of  this  con 
test  in  .their  own  way,  and  I  will  manage  my  side  of  it  in  my 
way.''  The  committee  asked  for  an  answer  in  writing.  "Not 
now/'  replied  Mr.  Lincoln.  "Lay  those  papers  down  here. 
I  will  give  no  other  answer  now.  I  may  or  may  not  write 
something  about  this  hereafter.  I  know  you  intend  to  make 
a  point  of  this.  But  go  ahead;  you  have  my  answer." 

Now  this  was  unquestionably  an  undignified  and  injudi 
cious  reply — one  which  the  people  would  not  receive  with 
any  consideration  of  the  irritable  .mood  in  which  it  was  ut 
tered,  or  the  provocation,  real  or  supposed,  which  inspired  it. 
Under  date  of  October  twenty-second,  he  made  a  reply  in 
writing.  His  conclusion  was  that  he  could  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  matter.  The  action  of  the  convention  and  of 
Governor  Johnson  was  nothing  which  had  been  inspired  by 
the  national  Executive.  The  Governor,  he  believed,  had  the 
right  to  favor  any  plan  he  might  choose  to  favor,  which  had 
been  adopted  by  the  loyal  citizens  of  Tennessee ;  and  the  Pres 
ident  could  not  see,  in  the  plan  adopted,  "  any  menace,  or  vio 
lence,  or  coercion  towards  any  one."  If  the  people  should 
vote  for  president,  under  this  plan,  it  would  neither  belong  to 
the  President,  nor  yet  to  the  military  Governor  of  Tennessee, 
to  say  whether  the  vote  should  be  received  and  counted,  but 
to  a  department  of  the  government  to  which,  under  the  Con 
stitution,  it  was  given,  to  decide.  So,  "except  to  give  pro 
tection  against  violence,"  he  declined  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  any  presidential  election.  The  result  was  the  withdrawal 


488  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

of  the  McClellan  ticket  in  that  state,  and  renewed  charges 
against  the  President  of  interfering  in  elections,  with  which 
he  had  thus  refused  to  interfere. 

No  headway  could  be  made,  however,  against  Mr.  Lincoln.. 
The  issue  was  too  plain.  Yet  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  it  ii 
doubtful  whether  the  success  of  the  McClellan  ticket  would 
have  produced  an  immediate  armistice.  Results  in  a  military 
point  of  view  were  too  plainly  in  our  hands,  and  the  country 
was  too  thoroughly  committed  to  the  Avar  for  the  re-establish 
ment  of  the  Union,  to  permit  so  disgraceful  and  ruinous  a 
proceeding.  But  the  democratic  party  had  consented  to  place 
itself  in  the  position  it  occupied,  for  the  sake  of  winning 
power;  and,  when  the  people  saw  such  men  as  Wood,  and 
Long,  and  Pendleton,  and  Vallandigham,  all  pushing  the  for 
tunes  of  the  democratic  candidate,  they  lost  faith  in  the  party, 
and  determined  to  support  the  administration,  its  policy,  and 
its  candidates.  In  the  meantime,  Grant,  Sherman  and  Sheri 
dan  were  leading  on  their  victorious  armies,  and  the  political 
voice  of  these  armies  was  almost  unanimous  for  the  republican 
nominees. 

Before  taking  leave  of  the  Canvass,  to  record  its  results,  it 
is  simple  justice  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  place  by  the  side  of  the 
Tennessee  case,  his  call  for  five  hundred  thousand  men,  made 
on  the  eighteenth  of  July,  to  be  drafted  after  the  fifth  of 
September,  if  they  should  not  be  furnished  previous  to  that 
date.  His  friends  urged  that  the  measure  would  be  unpop 
ular,  and  that  it  might  cost  him  his  election.  His  reply  to 
every  representation  of  this  kind  was  that  the  men  were 
needed,  that  it  was  his  duty  to  call  for  them,  and  that  ho 
should  call  for  them,  whatever  the  effect  might  be  upon  him 
self.  Does  any  one  believe  that  a  man  who  could  treat  a 
great  question  like  this  so  nobly  and  patriotically,  would  busy 
himself  with  small  politics  in  Tennessee,  or  connive  with  any 
small  politicians  there,  in  a  scheme  for  cheating  patriotic  men 
out  of  votes,  for  his  own  advantage? 

The  day  of  election  came  at  last,  and  resulted  in  an  over* 
whelming  majority  of  votes  for  Abraham  Lincoln.  Every 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  4S9 

Btatc  that  voted,  except  three,  gave  majorities  for  the  republi 
can  candidates,  and  two  of  these  three  were  old  slave  states — 
Kentucky  and  Delaware.  Only  New  Jersey  among  the 
northern  states  gave  its  vote  for  McClellan.  West  Virginia, 
Tennessee,  Arkansas,  and  Louisiana  supported  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  time  had  come,  at  last,  of  which  he  had  spoken  in 
Cooper  Institute,  more  than  four  years  before,  when  the 
republican  party  had  ceased  to  be  sectional,  by  obtaining  sup 
port  in  the  southern  states.  Mr.  Lincoln's  clear  popular  ma 
jority  was  411,428,  in  a  total  vote  of  4,015,902,  which  secured 
212  of  the  233  votes  in  the  electoral  college. 

The  President  might  well  feel  gratified  with  this  result. 
His  policy,  motives,  character  and  achievements  had  received 
the  emphatic  approval  of  the  American  people.  "I  am  thank 
ful  to  God  for  this  approval  of  the  people,"  said  he,  on  the 
night  of  his  election,  to  a  band  of  Pcnnsylvanians  who  had 
called  upon  him;  and  he  added:  "But,  while  deeply  grateful 
for  this  mark  of  their  confidence  in  me,  if  I  know  my  heart,  my 
gratitude  is  free  from  any  taint  of  personal  triumph.  I  do 
not  impugn  the  motives  of  any  one  opposed  to  me.  It  is  no 
pleasure  to  me  to  triumph  over  any  one ;  but  I  give  thanks  to 
the  Almighty  for  this  evidence  of  the  people's  resolution  to 
fitand  by  free  government,  and  the  rights  of  humanity." 

The  election  proved  more  than  Mr.  Lincoln's  popularity; 
and  this  he  understood.  In  subsequent  remarks  to  the  friendly 
political  clubs  of  the  District,  he  said:  "It  has  demonstrated 
that  a  people's  government  can  sustain  a  national  election  in 
the  midst  of  a  great  civil  war.  Until  now,  it  has  not  been 
known  to  the  world  that  this  was  a  possibility.  It  shows, 
also,  how  strong  and  sound  we  still  are.  *  *  '*  •  It  shows,  also, 
to  the  extent  yet  known,  that  we  have  more  men  now,  than 
we  had  when  the  war  began.  Gold  is  good  in  its  place ;  but 
living,  brave  and  patriotic  men  are  better  than  gold."  To  a 
friend  he  said:  "Being  only  mortal,  after  all,  I  should  have 
been  a  little  mortified  if  I  had  been  beaten  in  this  canvass 
before  the  people ;  but  that  sting  would  have  been  more  than 
compensated  by  the  thought  that  the  people  had  notified  me 


490  LIFE   OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

that  all  my  official  responsibilities  were  soon  to  be  lifted  off 
my  back." 

The  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  destroyed  the  last  hope  of  tho 
rebellion.  There  was  to  be  no  change  of  policy ;  and  none 
could  know  better  than  the  rebel  leaders  that  that  policy  could 
not  be  long  resisted.  These  leaders  were  little  inclined  to 
make  peace ;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  their  people  would 
have  permitted  them  to  do  so.  They  had  promised  their  peo 
ple  independence ,  and  the  latter  had  fought  with  wonderful 
bravery  and  persistency  for  it.  There  was  no  way  but  to  fight 
on,  until  the  inevitable  defeat  should  come. 

For  many  days  after  the  result  of  the  election  was  known, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  burdened  with  congratulations;  and  yet, 
amid  these  disturbances,  and  the  cares  of  office,  which  were 
onerous  in  the  extreme,  he  found  time  to  -write  the  following 
letter: 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  Washington,  Nov.  21, 1864. 

"Dear  Madam: — I  have  been  shown,  in  the  files  of  the  War  Depart 
ment,  a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-general  of  Massachusetts,  that  you 
are  the  mother  of  five  sons,  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of 
battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  words  of  mine  which 
should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming. 
But  I  cannot  refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be 
found  in  the  thanks  of  the  republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our 
Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and 
leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  sol 
emn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar  of  freedom. 

"  Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"To  Mrs.  Bixby,  Boston,  Massachusetts." 

From  the  day  of  the  election  to  the  close  of  the  rebellion, 
the  discordant  political  elements  of  the  northern  states  sub 
sided  into  silence  and  inaction.  The  election  itself  was  at 
tended  with  great  dignity — almost,  indeed,  with  solemnity. 
Men  felt  that  they  were  deciding  something  more  than  a  party 
question,  and  acted  with  reference  to  their  responsibilities  to 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  491 

God  and  their  country.  The  masses  of  the  democratic  party 
were  more  than  satisfied  with  the  result;  and  such  of  their 
leaders  as  were  thoroughly  loyal  undoubtedly  felt  that  a  vic 
tory  to  them,  under  all  the  circumstances,  would  have  been,  in 
many  respects,  a  misfortune.  Among  the  subjects  of  national 
thanksgiving  on  the  last  Thursday  in  November — the  day  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  appointment — certainly  the  result  of  the  elec 
tion  was  not  least  to  be  considered,  or  last  to  be  remembered 
with  devout  gratitude. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

THE  military  operations  of  1864  were  of  Jthe  most  moment 
ous  importance.  It  was  a  year  of  intense  activity  in  every 
department;  and,  although  there  were  great  miscarriages  and 
serious  and  perplexing  disasters,  the  grand  results  were  such 
as  to  show  to  the  people  of  the  whole  country  that  the  end 
was  not  far  off,  and  that  that  end  would  leave  the  rebellion 
hopeless  and  helpless  at  the  feet  of  the  national  power.  Al 
though  the  principal  interest  was  attached  to  the  operations 
of  the  two  grand  armies  under  Grant  and  Sherman,  there 
were  minor  movements  of  subsidiary  bodies,  which  attracted 
considerable  attention. 

Early  in  February,  an  expedition  under  General  Gillmore's 
direction,  for  clearing  Florida  of  insurgent  forces,  so  as  to  en 
able  the  Union  elements  of  the  state  to  reorganize,  resulted 
in  a  failure.  At  the  same  time,  Sherman,  proceeding  from1 
Vicksburg,  with  a  strong  infantry  force,  and  General  Smith, 
starting  from  Memphis,  with  a  heavy  force  of  cavalry,  un 
dertook  a  joint  movement  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  rebel 
supplies  and  communications ;  but  they  failed  in  their  plan 
of  forming  a  junction,  though  they  were  quite  successful  in 
their  work  of  destruction.  Later  in  the  month,  Kilpatrick 
made  his  bold  and  dashing  raid  upon  Richmond,  blowing  up 
the  locks  of  the  Kanawha  canal,  cutting  railways  and  tele 
graphs,  and  penetrating  within  the  outer  defenses  of  the  rebel 
capital.  In  March,  the  disastrous  Red  River  expedition  of 
General  Banks  occurred.  Much  damage  was  done  to  the 


LIFE   OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  493 

rebels,  and  more  was  received  by  ourselves.  In  April,  Fort 
Pillow  was  captured  from  us ;  and  here  occurred  one  of  tho 
most  shocking  outrages  of  the  war,  already  incidentally  al 
luded  to  in  these  pages.  Some  three  hundred  negro  troops, 
with  women  and  children,  were  murdered  in  cold  blood,  after 
they  had  surrendered.  The  white  officers  of  these  troops 
shared  their  cruel  fate ;  and  the  event  was  greeted  with  ap 
proval  by  rebel  newspapers.  The  history  of  war  is  illustra 
ted  by  no  deed  of  blacker  barbarism  than  this.  It  filled  the 
country  with  horror,  and  inspired  a  universal  demand  for  re 
taliation.  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  as  deeply  touched  as  any 
one,  promised  retaliation  publicly ;  but  it  was  never  inflicted. 
Late  in  the  spring,  the  western  army,  under  Sherman,  con 
fronted  Johnston  at  Chattanooga.  The  army  of  the  Potomac, 
immediately  under  General  Meade,  faced  Lee  in  Virginia. 
Both  sides  had  gathered  every  available  man  for  the  last  great 
trial  of  arms.  Lieutenant-general  Grant  perfected  his  plans, 
and,  after  visiting  the  western  army,  and  consulting  with  Sher 
man,  he  returned  to  the  east,  and  took  the  general  direction 
of  military  affairs.  Everything  was  given  into  his  hands; 
and  he  was  supplied  with  all  the  men  and  material  that  wero 
desired.  "The  particulars  of  your  plans,"  said  the  President 
to  him  in  a  letter,  "  I  neither  know,  nor  seek  to  know.  You 
are  vigilant  and  self-reliant;  and,  pleased  with  this,  I  wish 
not  to  obtrude  any  restraints  nor  constraints  upon  you." 
General  Grant's  response  to  this  note  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
evidently  not  given  in  ignorance  of  the  charges  which  had  so 
freely  been  made,  by  political  enemies  of  the  administration, 
that  our  generals  were  interfered  with  by  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  War.  "From  my  first  entrance  into  tho 
volunteer  service  of  my  country  to  the  present  day,"  said  he, 
'*  I  have  never  had  cause  of  complaint.  *  *  *  Indeed,  since 
the  promotion  which  placed  me  in  command  of  all  the  armies, 
and  in  view  of  the  great  responsibility  and  importance  of  suc 
cess,  I  have  been  astonished  at  the  readiness  with  winch  every 
thing  asked  for  has  been  yielded,  without  even  an  explanation 
asked." 


494  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Everything  having  been  made  ready,  the  two  armies  moved, 
at  the  opening  of  May,  to  the  work  that  lay  before  them.  On 
Tuesday  night,  May  third,  the  army  of  the  Potomac  crossed 
the  Rapidan ;  and  on  Thursday  that  series  of  actions  was  be 
gun  which  will  be  known  in  history  aa  "The  Battles  of  the 
Wilderness."  Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  brave 
men  fell  on  both  sides ;  but  the  rebel  general  was  obliged, 
from  day  to  day,  to  fall  back  from  his  carefully  prepared  de 
fenses,  to  save  his  communications ;  while  Grant  flanked  him 
by  a  series  of  swift  and  daring'  swoops  of  his  gigantic  force, 
until  Lee  found  himself  and  his  army  in  Richmond.  In  co 
operation  with  these  movements  of  Grant's  army,  General 
Butler  pushed  up  the  James  River  with  a  large  force,  and  se 
cured  and  held  City  Point  and  Bermuda  Hundred.  This  was 
his  principal  work ;  but  he  undertook  various  diversions  with 
out  remarkable  results. 

It  was  not  until  the  middle  of  June  that  the  army  reached 
the  James  River,  and  commenced  the  siege  of  Petersburgh, 
which  was  destined  to  ultimate  in  the  downfall  of  the  re 
bellion. 

General  Sherman  pursued  the  strategy  adopted  by  his  su 
perior.  He  had  a  larger  army  than  Johnston,  but  Johnston 
had  the  advantage  of  strong  positions  and  a  knowledge  of 
the  country.  He  also  moved  toward  his  supplies,  while 
Sherman  left  his  behind  him.  The  federal  General  flanked 
Johnston  out  of  his  works  at  Buzzard's  Roost ;  and  then,  fight 
ing  and  flanking,  from  day  to  day,  he  drove  him  from  Dalton 
to  Atlanta.  Then  Johnston  was  superseded  by  Hood,  and 
Hood  assumed  the  offensive.  In  three  days  of  bloody  battle, 
the  new  commander  lost  half  of  his  army ;  and  then  he  was 
glad  to  get  behind  the  defenses  of  Atlanta.  Here  he  remained 
more  than  a  month,  besieged.  In  the  endeavor  to  escape  from 
the  toils  which  Sherman  was  weaving  around  him,  he  found 
himself  at  last  thoroughly  outgeneraled,  and  was  obliged  to 
fim.  Atlanta  fell  into  our  hands,  on  the  second  of  September. 
Then  Hood,  a  rash  and  desperate  officer,  set  off  to  break  up 
Sherman's  communications;  and,  finding  himself  thoroughly 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  495 

whipped,  started  for  a  grand  march  to  Nashville,  where  he 
hoped  to  find  repayment  for  the  losses  and  disgraces  he  had 
suffered.  Sherman  sent  back  to  General  Thomas,  who  had 
been  left  in  command  there,  a  portion  of  his  army,  and  much 
of  his  material  of  war ;  and  then  he  turned  his  back  on  Hood, 
for  a  march  to  the  sea-coast. 

This  march,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  history  of 
war,  was  called  by  the  rebels  a  retreat.  It  was  begun  on  the 
twelfth  of  November;  and,  leaving  behind  supplies  and  all 
means  of  communication,  the  gallant  host  started  for  the  At 
lantic.  The  most  frantic  efforts  were  made  by  the  rebels  to 
check  the  progress  of  the  redoubtable  army.  Small  forces 
hovered  in  front,  in  flank,  and  in  rear,  but  nothing  impeded 
its  march.  It  was  a  gala-day  affair,  the  soldiers  supporting 
themselves  upon  the  country  through  which  they  passed.  On 
the  eighth  of  December,  the  army  arrived  within  twenty  miles 
of  Savannah.  On  the  fourteenth,  Fort  McAllister  was  taken ; 
and,  on  the  same  day,  communication  was  opened  with  the 
federal  fleet,  sent  to  co-operate  and  bear  supplies.  The  army 
had  reached  a  new  base ;  and  had  reached  it  without  a  single 
disaster.  Savannah  was  occupied  immediately,  the  rebel 
troops  retreating  and  escaping.  On  the  next  day  after  Fort 
McAllister  fell,  Thomas  defeated  Hood  in  Tennessee,  and  sent 
him  back,  with  his  army  cut  in  pieces  and  ruined. 

In  the  meantime,  Sheridan  had  whipped  Early  in  the  Shen- 
andoah  valley,  in  a  series  of  brilliant  engagements ;  and,  al 
though  there  had  been  raids  of  rebel  cavalry  across  the  Poto 
mac,  and  panics  and  alarms  in  various  quarters,  the  1st  of 
January,  1865,  found  the  Union  cause  much  advanced,  and 
the  rebels  weakened  and  despondent.  Sherman  was  at  Sa 
vannah,  organizing  for  another  movement  up  the  coast;  Hood 
was  crushed;  Early's  army  wras  destroyed;  Price,  too,  had 
been  routed  in  Missouri ;  Canby  was  operating  for  the  capture 
of  Mobile ;  and  Grant,  with  the  grip  of  a  bull-dog,  held  Lee 
in  Richmond,  while  all  these  great  movements  in  other  parts 
of  the  country  were  in  progress.  ^  J. 

There  was  discord  in  the  counsels  of  the  rebels.     They  be- 


496  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

gan  to  talk  of  using  the  negroes  as  soldiers.  The  command 
ing  general  demanded  this  measure;  and,  at  last,  the  singular 
spectacle  was  exhibited  of  a  slaveholders'  rebellion,  under 
taken  to  make  slavery  perpetual,  calling  upon  the  slaves 
themselves  for  help.  But  the  call  for  help  came  too  late,  even 
had  it  been  addressed  to  more  promising  sources.  Lee  was 
tied,  and  Sherman  was  turning  his  steps  toward  him;  and 
among  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  there  was  a  fearful  looking- 
for  of  fa{al  disasters. 

Two  changes  occurred  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  cabinet  during  the 
year,  in  addition  to  that  already  noted  in  the  post-office  de-» 
partment.  Edward  Bates  of  Missouri,  the  Attorney-general, 
left  his  post  on  the  first  of  December,  and  was  succeeded  by 
James  Speed  of  Kentucky.  Mr.  Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  resigned  early  in  July.  That  this  resignation  was 
unexpected  and  unwelcome  to* Mr.  Lincoln,  was  evident;  but 
it  was  immediately  accepted.  There  was  probably  some  per 
sonal  feeling  on  both  sides,  into  the  causes  of  which  there  is 
no  occasion  to  enter.  The  mtitter  excited  Mr.  Lincoln  very 
much — probably  more  than  anything  that  concerned  him  per 
sonally  during  his  administration.  lie  first  appointed  to  the 
vacant  office  Governor  David  Todd  of  Ohio ;  and,  the  appoint 
ment  being  declined,  he  named  Hon.  William  Pitt  Fessenden 
of  Maine.  Mr.  Fessenden  was  a  gentleman  in  whom  the 
country  had  full  confidence ;  but,  owing  to  his  infirm  health, 
he  assumed  the  responsibilities  of  the  place  with  great  reluc 
tance,  and  only  after  such  an  appeal  from  Mr.  Lincoln  as  he 
could  not  resist. 

On  the  twelfth  of  October,  Chief  Justice  Taney  died ;  and 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Chase  urged  that  gentleman  at  once  as  the 
proper  man  to  be  endowed  with  the  responsibilities  of  that  au 
gust  office.  But  Mr.  Chase  had  his  enemies,  like  all  those  who 
have  achieved  an  equally  prominent  position.  The  antagonism 
between  his  friends  and  enemies  was  at  once  developed;  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  approached  with  all  the  motives  for  and 
against  the  appointment.  In  this  matter,  Mr.  Lincoln's  habit 
of  hearing  all  the  arguments  in  a  case  on  which  he  had  already 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  497 

passed  his  judgment,  was  strikingly  exhibited.  Intimate 
friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  declare  that  there  never  was  a  time 
during  his  administration  when  he  -did  not  intend  to  appoint 
Mr.  Chase  to  this  place,  if  it  should  he  made  vacant  by  any 
cause.  To  all  arguments  which  related  to  Mr.  Chase's  fitness 
or  unfitness  for  the  office,  the  President  lent  a  ready  ear ;  but 
he  was  exceedingly  vexed  with  those  who  appealed  to  his  self 
ish  resentments.  There  were  not  wanting  men  who  tried  to 
arouse  his  prejudices,  by  reporting  unpleasant  words  that  Mr. 
Chase  was  alleged  to  have  uttered  against  the  President ; 
but  this  gossip  was  always  offensive,  because  it  supposed  that 
he  could  be  affected  in  his  choice  by  selfish  motives.  To  one 
man  who  accused  Mr.  Chase  to  him  of  having  used  the  pat 
ronage  of  his  department  to  advance  his  own  presidential 
prospects,  he  simply  replied :  "  Well,  Chase  would  make  a 
pretty  good  president;  and,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  wish 
some  one  would  take  it  off  my  hands."  To  another  friend  he 
remarked  that  there  were  two  considerations  that  controlled 
him  in  this  appointment :  first,  the  man  appointed  should  be  an 
anti-slavery  man  on  principle ;  secondly,  he  should  thoroughly 
understand  the  financial  policy  of  the  government.  Mr. 
Chase's  anti-slavery  principles  were  universally  acknowledged,, 
and  the  financial  policy  of  the  government  was  his  own.  So,, 
after  a  delay  that  gave  Mr.  Chase's  friends  and  enemies  time 
to  urge  the  points  of  their  respective  cases,  Mr.  Chase  received 
the  appointment ;  and  the  country  was  no  better  satisfied  with 
this  disposition  of  the  matter  than  was  Mr.  Lincoln  himself. 

On  the  sixth  of  December,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  in  his  annual 
message  to  Congress,  which  had  assembled  on  the  fifth.  The 
document  opened  with  a  review  of  the  position  of  foreign 
governments,  and  our  relations  to  those  governments.  The 
President  announced  the  ports  of  Norfolk,  Fernandina  and 
Pensacola  to  have  been  opened  by  proclamation.  His  view 
of  the  Arguelles  case,  which  the  opposition  had  made  the 
subject  of  severe  criticism,  he  gave  in  the  words :  "  For  my- 
Belf,  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  power  and  duty  of  the  executive, 
under  the  law  of  nations,  to  exclude  enemies  of  the  human 
32 


498  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

race  from  an  asylum  in  the  United  States.  If  Congress 
should  think  that  proceedings  in  such  cases  lack  the  authority 
of  law,  or  ought  to  be  further  regulated  by  it,  I  recommend 
that  provision  be  made  for  effectually  preventing  foreign  slave- 
traders  from  acquiring  domicile  and  facilities  for  their  criminal 
occupation  in  our  country."  Owing  to  raids  into  the  states, 
planned  in  Canada  by  enemies  of  the  United  States  harbored 
there,  he  announced  that  he  had  thought  proper  to  give  notice 
that,  after  the  expiration  of  six  months',  the  period  condition 
ally  stipulated  in  the  existing  arrangements  with  Great  Britain, 
the  United  States  would  hold  themselves  at  liberty  to  increase 
their  naval  armament  upon  the  lakes,  if  they  should  deem  it 
necessary  to  do  so.  Increased  taxation  had  benefited  the 
revenue ;  and  the  national  banking  system  had  proved  to  be  ac 
ceptable  to  capitalists  and  the  people.  The  naval  exhibit  gave 
a  total  of  671  vessels,  carrying  4,610  guns,  which  showed  an 
increase,  during  the  year,  of  83  vessels  and  167  guns.  The 
whole  cost  of  the  immense  squadrons  that  had  been  called 
into  existence  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  was  more  than 
two  hundred  and  thirty-eight  millions  of  dollars.  One  matter 
the  President  spoke  of  with  special  interest,  viz:  the  steady 
expansion  of  population,  improvement,  and  governmental  in 
stitutions,  over  the  new  and  unoccupied  portions  of  the  coun 
try,  notwithstanding  the  civil  war. 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  fit  to  urge  the  passage  of  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution,  prohibiting  slavery  throughout  the 
United  States,  notwithstanding  the  same  Congress  had  killed 
the  measure  at  its  previous  session.  It  may  be  stated  here 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  contemplated  this  measure,  and  was 
ready  for  it  long  before  Congress  had  come  up  to  his  position. 
Before  even  an  allusion  to  this  amendment  had  been  publicly 
made,  he  talked  about  it  with  his  friends,  and  was  urged  by  one 
of  them  to  become  a  leader  in  the  movement.  lie  replied 
that  he  had  no  ambition  of  that  sort,  but  that  he  thought  that 
the  amendment  ought  to  betaiade,  and  would  be  made.  For 
himself,  he  was  content  to  let  others  initiate  the  measure,  and 
win  the  credit  of  it.  But  the  matter  had  arrived  at  a  new 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LIXCOLX.  499 

stage ;  and,  when  he  saw  that  his  influence  was  really  necessary 
to  its  consummation,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  exert  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  alluded  to  the  lessons  which  had  been  taught 
by  the  presidential  election.  This  election  had  proved  the 
purpose  of  the  people  in  the  loyal  states  to  maintain  the  in 
tegrity  of  the  Union.  It  had  proved,  too,  that,  although  the 
*  Waste  of  war  had  been  great,  there  were  actually  more  men 
in  the  Union  than  when  the  war  began.  There  had  been, 
during  the  three  years  and  a  half  of  war,  an  increase  of  nearly 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  voters,  without  counting  the 
soldiers  who,  by  the  laws  of  their  respective  states,  were  not 
permitted  to  vote.  With  this  fact  in  view,  it  was  plain  that 
the  government  could  maintain  its  contest  with  the  rebellion 
indefinitely,  so  far  as  the  supply  of  men  was  concerned.  Mr. 
Lincoln  closed  his  message  by  remarking  that  the  rebels  could, 
at  any  moment,  have  peace,  by  laying  down  their  arms,  and 
submitting  to  the  national  authority,  under  the  Constitution. 
In  saying  this,  however,  he  did  not  mean  to  retract  anything 
he  had  said  about  slavery.  He  would  not  retract  his  Eman 
cipation  Proclamation,  nor  return  to  slavery  any  man  free  by 
the  terms  of  that  proclamation. 

The  most  important  measure  effected  by  Congress  at  this 
session,  was  the  passage  of  the  amendments  the  Constitution, 
abolishing  slavery  in  all  the  states.  It  passed  the  House  by 
more  than  the  requisite  two-thirds  vote,  having  passed  the 
Senate  during  the  previous  session.  The  event  was  hailed 
with  great  satisfaction  by  the  friends  of  the  administration; 
and  only  a  few  of  the  more  virulent  of  the  opposition  were 
disaffected  by  it.  To  the  President,  the  measure  was  particu 
larly  gratifying ;  and  he  took  occasion  to  express  his  satisfac 
tion  to  a  crowd  that  gathered  around  the  White  House,  im 
mediately  after  its  adoption.  He  said  that  it  seemed  to  him 
to  be  the  one  thing  necessary  to  the  winding  up  of  the  whole 
difficulty.  It  completed  and  confirmed  the  work  of  his  proc 
lamation  of  emancipation.  It  needed  only  to  be  adopted  by 
the  votes  of  the  states ;  and  he  appealed  to  his  auditors  to  go 
home,  and  see  that  work  faithfully  accomplished. 


500  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  figures  which  gave  the  result  of  the  presidential  elec 
tion  showed  that  the  country  was  stronger  in  men  than  it  was 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war;  and,  as  the  call  for  five  hundred 
thousand  men,  made  in  July,  had  failed  to  produce  all  the 
soldiers  which  the  war,  much  longer  protracted,  would  require, 
the  President  issued  a  call,  on  the  nineteenth  of  December,  for 
three  hundred  thousand  more. 

A  peace  conference,  procured  by  the  voluntary  and  irre 
sponsible  agency  of  Mr.  Francis  P.  Blair,  was  held  on  the 
steamer  River  Queen,  in  Hampton  Roads,  on  the  3d  of  Feb 
ruary,  1865,  between  President  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward, 
representing  the  government,  and  Messrs.  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  J.  A.  Campbell  and  R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  representing 
the  rebel  confederacy.  It  was  an  informal  affair,  entirely 
verbal  in  its  conduct,  and  unproductive  of  results.  The  Pres 
ident  consented  to  become  a  party  to  the  interview,  on  repre 
sentations  made  by  General  Grant,  who  regarded  at  least  two 
of  the  commissioners  as  very  sincere  in  their  desire  for  peace. 
In  the  conference,  these  commissioners  favored  a  postponement 
of  the  question  of  separation,  and  mutual  efforts  of  the  two 
governments  toward  some  extrinsic  policy  for  a  season,  so  as 
to  give  time  for  the  passions  of  the  people  to  cool.  The  armies, 
meantime,  were  to  be  reduced,  and  the  intercourse  between 
the  people  of  the  two  sections  to  be  resumed.  This  the  Presi 
dent  considered  as  equivalent  to  an  armistice  or  truce ;  and  he 
informed  them  that  he  could  agree  to  no  cessation  of  hostili 
ties,  except  on  the  basis  of  a  disbandment  of  the  insurgent 
forces,  and  the  recognition  of  the  national  authority  through 
out  all  the  states  of  the  Union.  He  also  declared  it  impossi 
ble  to  recede  from  his  Emancipation  Proclamation;  and  in 
formed  the  Richmond  gentlemen  that  Congress  had  passed 
the  constitutional  amendment,  prohibiting  slavery;  stating,  in 
addition,  that  the  amendment  would  doubtless  be  perfected  by 
the  action  of  three-fourths  of  the  states.  There  was  an  earn 
est  desire  for  peace  on  both  sides,  without  a  doubt ;  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  could,  with  truth  to  himself  and  honor  to  his  country, 
make  peace  only  on  certain  essential  conditions;  while  the 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  501 

hands  of  the  commissioners  were,  tied  by  the  obstinacy  which 
reigned  in  Richmond. 

The  reports  of  the  conversation  at  this  conference  are  very 
meager,  necessarily;  but  enough  has  been  made  public  to 
show  that  some  of  the  incidents  were  very  interesting  and 
somewhat  amusing.  The  Augusta  (Georgia)  Chronicle  has 
published  an  account  of  the  conference,  which  is  said  to  have 
been  prepared  under  the  eye  of  Mr.  Stephens.  This  account 
states  that  Mr.  Lincoln  declared  that,  in  his  negotiations  for 
peace,  he  could  not  recognize  another  government  inside  of  the 
one  of  which  he  alone  was  President.  "That,"  said  he, 
"  would  be  doing  what  you  so  long  asked  Europe  to  do  in 
vain,  and  be  resigning  the  only  thing  the  Union  armies  are 
fighting  for."  To  this,  Mr.  Hunter  replied  that  the  recogni 
tion  of  Davis'  power  to  make  a  treaty  was  the  first  and  indis 
pensable  step  to  peace ;  and,  to  illustrate  his  point,  he  referred 
to  the  correspondence  between  King  Charles  the  First  and 
his  Parliament,  as  a  reliable  precedent  of  a  constitutional  ruler 
treating  with  rebels.  The  Chronicle's  account  says  that  at 
this  point  "Mr.  Lincoln's  face  wore  that  indescribable  ex 
pression  which  generally  preceded  his  hardest  hits ;  and  he 
remarked :  4  Upon  questions  of  history,  I  must  refer  you  to 
Mr.  Seward,  for  he  is  posted  in  such  things,  and  I  do  n't  pro 
fess  to  be  ;  but  my  only  distinct  recollection  of  the  matter  is 
that  Charles  lost  his  he^ad.' " 

The  President  told  his  "little  story,"  too,  on  this  occasion, 
the  best  version  of  which  is  given  in  Mr.  Carpenter's  Remin 
iscences.  They  were  discussing  the  slavery  question,  when 
Mr.  Hunter  remarked  that  the  slaves,  always  accustomed  to 
work  upon  compulsion,  under  an  overseer,  would,  if  suddenly 
freed,  precipitate  not  only  themselves,  but  the  entire  society 
of  the  South,  into  irremediable  ruin.  No  work  would  be 
done,  but  blacks  and  whites  would  starve  together.  The 
President  waited  for  Mr.  Seward  to  answer  the  argument; 
but,  as  that  gentleman  hesitated,  he  said:  "Mr.  Hunter, 
you  ought  to  know  a  great  deal  better  about  this  matter 
than  I,  for  you  have  always  lived  under  the  slave  system.  I 


502  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

can  only  say,  in  reply  to  your  statement  of  the  case,  that  it 
reminds  me  of  a  man  out  in  Illinois,  by  the  name  of  Case, 
who  undertook,  a  few  years  ago,  to  raise  a  very  large  herd  of 
hogs.  It  was  a  great  trouble  to  feed  them ;  and  how  to  get 
around  this  was  a  puzzle  to  him.  At  length,  he  hit  upon  the 
plan  of  planting  an  immense  field  of  potatoes ;  and,  when  they 
were  sufficiently  grown,  he  turned  the  whole  herd  into  the 
field,  and  let  them  have  full  swing,  thus  saving  not  only  the 
labor  of  feeding  the  hogs,  but  that  also  of  digging  the  pota 
toes  !  Charmed  with  his  sagacity,  he  stood  one  day  leaning 
against  the  fence,  counting  his  hogs,  when  a  neighbor  came 
along.  '  Well,  well,'  said  he,  '  Mr.  Case,  this  is  all  very  fine. 
Your  hogs  are  doing  very  well  just  now ;  but  you  know  out 
here  in  Illinois  the  frost  comes  early,  and  the  ground  freezes 
a  foot  deep.  Then  what  are  they  going  to  do?'  This  was  a 
view  of  the  matter  which  Mr.  Case  had  not  taken  into  ac 
count.  Butchering  time  for  hogs  was  away  on  in  December 
or  January.  He  scratched  his  head,  and  at  length  stammered : 
'Well,  it  may  come  pretty  hard  on  their  snouts,  but  I  don't 
see  but  it  will  be  root  hoc/  or  die  ! ' ' 

It  is  not  supposed  that  Mr.  Lincoln  hoped  for  more  from 
this  conference  than  he  did  from  the  Niagara  Falls  negotia 
tions;  but  he  was  determined  to  show  that  he  was  ready 
for  peace,  on  the  only  grounds  that  would  satisfy  the  loyal 
people  of  the  country.  The  result* strengthened  the  faith 
of  the  people  in  him;  and  the  rebel  President  seized  upon 
it  to  stir  the  ashes  in  the  southern  heart,  in  the  vain  hope  to 
find  fuel  there  which  the  long  fire  had  left  unconsumed. 

Congress  adjourned  by  constitutional  limitation  on  the  third 
of  March,  although  the  Senate  was  at  once  convened  in  extra 
session,  in  accordance  with  a  proclamation  of  the  President. 

On  the  day  of  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
first  term  of  office  expired.  Four  years  of  bloody  war  had 
passed  away — four  years  marked  by  the  most  marvelous 
changes  in  the  spirit,  position,  feelings,  principles  and  institu 
tions  of  the  American  people.  The  great  system  of  wrong, 
out  of  which  the  rebellion  had  sprung,  was  in  rapid  process 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LIXCOLN.  503 

of  dissolution,  and  already  beyond  the  reach  of  resuscitation. 
The  government  had  passed  through  the  severest  tests,  and 
had  emerged  triumphant.  There  was  no  longer  doubt  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  and  no  longer  contempt  among  the  na 
tions  of  the  earth.  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  humble  and  unob 
trusive  citizen,  the  self-educated  and  Christian  man,  had  been 
tried,  and  had  not  been  found  wanting.  His  foes  no  longer 
denied,  and  his  friends  no  longer  doubted,  his  great  ability. 
He  was,  in  every  sense,  the  first  citizen  of  the  republic ;  and 
he  had  taken  his  place  among  the  leading  rulers  of  the  world. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  re-inaugurated  into  the  presidential  office 
on  the  fourth  of  March.  An  immense  crowd  was  in  attend 
ance — a  crowd  of  affectionate  friends,  not  doubtful  of  the 
President,  and  not  doubtful  of  one  another  and  the  future,  as 
at  the  first  inauguration.  Chief  Justice  Chase  administered 
the  oath  of  office;  and  then  Mr.  Lincoln  read  his  inaugural 
address — a  paper  whose  Christian  sentiments  and  whose  rev 
erent  and  pious  spirit  has  no  parallel  among  the  state  papers  of 
the  American  Presidents.  It  showed  the  President  still  un 
touched  by  resentment,  still  brotherly  in  his  feelings  toward 
the  enemies  of  the  government,  and  still  profoundly  conscious 
of  the  overruling  power  of  Providence  in  national  affairs. 
The  address  was  as  follows: 

"Fellow-Countrymen — At  this  second  appearing  to  take  the  oath  of 
the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address 
than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then  a  statement  somewhat  in  detail  of  a 
course  to  be  pursued  seemed  very  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the  ex 
piration  of  four  years,  during  which  public  declarations  have  been  con 
stantly  called  forth  on  eveiy  point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest  which 
Btill  absorbs  the  attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation, 
little  that  is  new  could  be  presented. 

'•  The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all  els6  chiefly  depends,  is  as 
well  known  to  the  public  as  to  myself;  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably  sat 
isfactory  and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the  future,  no 
prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this  four  years  ago,  all  thoughts 
were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it;  all 
Bought  to  avoid  it.  While  the  inaugural  ad'dress  was  being  delivered 
from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without  war, 


50-i  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city  seeking  to  destroy  it  without  war — 
seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide  the  effects  by  negotiation. 
Both  parties  deprecated  war;  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather 
than  let  the  nation  survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than 
let  it  perish ;  and  the  war  came. 

"  One  eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  colored  slaves,  not  distrib 
uted  generally  over  the  Union,  but  localized  in  the  southern  part  of  it 
These  slaves  constituted  a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest.  All  knew 
that  this  interest  was1  somehow  the  cause  of  the  war.  To  strengthen, 
perpetuate  and  extend  this  interest,  was  the  object  for  which  the  insur 
gents  would  rend  the  Union  even  by  war,  while  the  government  claimed 
no  right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial  enlargement  of  it. 

"  Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or  the  duration 
which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither  anticipated  that  the  cause  of 
the  conflict  might  cease  with,  or  even  before,  the  conflict  itself  should 
cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier  triumph,  and  a  result  less  fundamental 
and  astounding. 

"Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same  God,  and  each  in 
vokes  his  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem  strange  that  any  men 
should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from 
the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces;  but  let  us  judge  not,  that  we  be  not 
judged.  The  prayers  of  both  could  not  be  answered.  That  of  neither 
has  been  answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  his  own  purposes.  '  Woe 
unto  the  world  because  of  offences,  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offences 
come :  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh.'  If  we  shall 
suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these  offences,  which  in  the 
providence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which  having  continued 
through  his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  he  gives 
to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by 
whom  the  offence  came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any  departure  from 
those  divine  attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  as 
cribe  to  him?  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  soon  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it 
continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of 
blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  with  another  drawn  with  the 
sword ;  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said, 
1  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.' 

"With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the 
right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the 
work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who 
shall  have  borne  the  battle  and  for  his  widow  and  orphans,  to  do  all 
which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  our 
selves  and  with  all  nations." 


LIFE   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  505 

On  the  sixth  of  March,  Mr.  Fessende'n,  who  had  never  re 
garded  himself  as  permanently  in  the  office  of  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  resigned ;  and  Hugh  McCulloch  of  Indiana  was 
appointed  to  his  place.  Further  than  this,  Mr.  Lincoln  in 
troduced  no  changes  into  his  cabinet.  The  people  had  not 
only  indorsed  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  they  had  indorsed  his  admin 
istration.  On  the  eleventh  of  March,  the  President  issued  a 
proclamation,  in  pursuance  of  an  act  of  Congress,  calling  upon 
deserters  to  return  to  their  posts,  and  promising  them  pardon. 
The  proclamation  called  many  of  the  wanderers  back  to  their 
duty.  The  draft  for  three  hundred  thousand  men  was  com 
menced  on  the  fifteenth  of  the  same  month,  and  every  neces 
sary  measure  was  adopted  for  a  continuance  of  the  war, 
should  the  constant  accumulation  of  federal  successes  fail  to 
bring  the  rebellion  to  a  close. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

THE  affairs  of  the  rebellion  were  hurrying  to  a  crisis.  In 
January,  General  Sherman  started  northward  with  his  hosts ; 
and  the  borders  of  South  Carolina  were  reached  on  the  thir 
tieth.  They  swept  through  the  state,  a  very  besom  of  de 
struction — tearing  up  railroads,  burning  bridges,  Jiving  on  the 
country,  and  attracting  large  numbers  of  negroes  to  then),  to 
learn  that  they  were  free.  Columbia  was  occupied  on  the 
seventeenth  of  February,  and  the  public  property  destroyed. 
The  arteries  that  fed  the  life  of  Charleston  were  cut,  and  the 
proud  city  was  evacuated  without  thevcost  of  a  life.  Though 
threatened  often,  the  army  inarched  with  scarcely  more  diffi 
culty  than  they  experienced  in  their  march  across  Georgia. 
Fayetteville,  North  Carolina,  was  reached  and  occupied  on 
the  twelfth  of  March;  and  then  communication  was  estab 
lished  with  Generals  Terry  and  Schofield  at  Wilmington,  and 
the  army  received  such  supplies  as  were  needed.  Battles  oc 
curred  at  Averysboro  and  Bentonville;  but  still  the  march 
was  resistless,  and  the  forces  gathered  in  front,  under  command 
of  General  Johnston,  were  driven  northward  as  the  forest 
leaves  are  driven  by  the  wind.  On  the  twenty-second  of 
March,  Goldsboro  was  occupied ;  and  there  the  army  remained 
for  some  days,  while  General  Sherman  visited  City  Point,  for 
consultation  with  General  Grant. 

The  army  of  Sherman  was  aiming  at  Richmond.  There 
was  no  doubt  of  that;  but  Lee  was  held  to  the  rebel  capital 
by  Grant,  and  could  not  get  away.  The  grand  campaign 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  507 

was  culminating ;  and,  on  the  day  that  Sherman  entered  Golds- 
boro,  Mr.  Lincoln  arrived  at  City  Point,  partly  to  relieve 
himself  of  o'fficial  cares  that  had  made  him  sick,  and  partly 
to  be  near  operations  which  involved  momentous  consequences 
to  the  country.  On  the  twenty-fifth  of  March,  Lee  attacked 
and  captured  Fort  Stedman,  but  was  driven  out  of  it  with 
terrible  losses ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  visited  the  scene  on  the  same 
day,  cheered  by  the  soldiers  wherever  he  appeared.  The  day 
had  been  fixed  upon  for  a  grand  review,  in  honor  of  the  Presi 
dent;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "This  is  better  than  a  review." 
On  the  twenty-eighth  of  March,  a  council  of  war  was  held 
on  the  steamer  River  Queen,  at  City  Point,  attended  by  the 
President  and  Generals  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Meade,  and 
Ord ;  and,  soon  afterwards,  Sherman  left  to  rejoin  his  army. 

New  dispositions  of  troops  had  been  in  progress  for  several 
days ;  and,  on  the  day  following  the  council  of  war,  the  grand 
movement  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  began.  Before  the 
morning  was  passed,  a  new  line  of  battle  had  been  formed, 
whose  right  was  on  the  extreme  left  of  the  former  position ; 
and  here  the  army  commenced  entrenching.  A  sharp  little 
fight  occurred  in  the  afternoon,  without  material  results.  On 
the  following  day,  it  rained;  but  on  Friday,  Saturday,  and 
Sunday,  Grant's  whole  line  was  engaged. in  a  series  of  heavy 
battles ;  and,  while  these  were  in  progress,  the  President  re 
mained  at  City  Point,  receiving  dispatches  from  the  field,  and 
forwarding  the  substance  of  them  to  the  country.  His  first 
dispatch,  on  Saturday,  reported  that  there  had  been  much 
hard  fighting  that  morning,  in  which  our  forces  had  been 
driven  back.  Later  in  the  day,  he  announced  that  the  ground 
had  all  been  retaken,  and  that  our  troops  were  occupying  the 
position  which  the  rebels  held  in  the  morning.  On  Saturday, 
Sheridan  and  Warren  met  with  great  successes.  On  Sunday, 
the  President  announced  "the  triumphant  success  of  our 
armies,  after  three  days  of  hard  fighting,  during  which  tho 
forces  on  both  skies  displayed  unsurpassed  valor."  At  half- 
past  eight  in  the  evening,  Mr.  Lincoln  telegraphed  to  Mr. 
Stanton  that,  at  half-past  four  in  the  afternoon,  General  Grant 


508  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

reported  that  he  had  taken  twelve  thousand  prisoners,  and 
fifty  pieces  of  artillery.  In  the  smoke  of  this  great  day  of 
battle,  the  rebellion  was  overthrown.  Lee,  with  his  shattered 
army  reduced  to  half  of  its  original  numbers,  by  the  three 
days  of  fighting,  evacuated  Richmond.  The  rebel  rams  and 
wooden  fleet  were  blown  up  during  the  night,  with  terrific 
explosions.  On  the  north  side  of  the  James,  lay  General 
Wejtzel's  corps,  waiting  to  occupy  Richmond,  whenever  the 
signs  should  indicate  the  safety  of  an  advance.  On  Monday 
morning,  April  third,  Weitzel  pushed  out  the  Fifth  Massachu 
setts  Cavalry  to  reconnoiter ;  and  they  reported  that  no  enemy 
was  to  be  found.  At  eleven  in  the  morning,  he  announced  by 
telegraph  that  he  entered  Richmond  at  a  quarter  past  eight; 
that  the  enemy  had  left  in  great  haste ;  that  he  had  many 
guns ;  that  the  city  was  on  fire ;  and  that  the  people  received 
him  with  enthusiastic  expressions  of  joy.  His  dispatch  closed 
with  the  statement  that  Grant  had  started  to  cut  off  Lee's  re 
treat,  and  that  President  Lincoln  had  gone  to  the  front. 

The  day  on  which  Richmond  fell  will  long  be  remembered 
by  the  people  of  America,  in  both  sections  of  the  country. 
When  the  news  was  made  public  on  Monday,  the  whole  North 
was  thrown  into  a  frenzy  of  joyous  excitement.  Every  bell  on 
every  public  building,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  was  rung 
for  hours.  Cannon  answered  to  cannon,  from  mountain  to 
mountain,  and  from  valley  to  valley.  Men  grasped  one  an 
other's  hands  in  the  streets,  and  wept,  or  embraced  each  other 
in  the  stress  of  their  joyous  enthusiasm.  Public  meetings  were 
called,  at  which  the  deeds  of  the  gallant  heroes  who  had  won  the 
decisive  victories  were  praised  and  cheered,  and  the  public  ex 
ultation  found  expression  in  speech  and  music.  Nothing  like  it 
was  ever  seen  upon  the  continent.  The  war  was  over.  Rich 
mond,  that  had  so  long  defied  the  national  authority  and  re 
sisted  the  national  arms,  was  ours.  The  rebel  President  and 
hie  associates  were  fugitives.  Lee's  army  was  running  away, 
and  Grant  was  pursuing  them.  The  sun  of  peace  had  fairly 
risen.  The  incubus  of  war  that  had  pressed  upon  the  nation's 
h^art  for  four  long,  weary  years,  was  lifted;  and  the  nation 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  509 

sprang  to  its  feet,  with  all  possible  demonstrations  of  joyous 
exultation. 

The  pursuit  of  Lee  was  relentlessly  prosecuted  by  our  vic 
torious  forces ;  and,  after  two  or  three  battles,  the  rebel  Gen 
eral  was  obliged  to  surrender  his  whole  army,  which  had  been 
reduced  by  his  losses  to  less  than  twenty  thousand  men. 
Within  a  period  of  less  than  two  weeks,  the  city  of  Richmond 
was  taken,  and  the  proud  army  of  Virginia  passed  out  of  ex 
istence.  The  capture  of  Lee  was  made  the  occasion  of  an 
other  day  of  popular  rejoicing ;  and  the  scenes  and  sounds 
that  followed  the  capture  of  Eichmond  were  repeated. 

Of  the  feelings  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  he  sat  in  his  tent  at  City 
Point,  receiving  the  dispatches  which  informed  him  of  the 
momentous  movements  in  progress  at  the  front,  no  imagina 
tion  can  form  an  exaggerated  estimate.  But  he  could  not 
sustain  the  excitement  of  those  days  without  relief;  and  he 
found  it  in  a  way  which  none  but  he  would  have  adopted. 
Just  before  he  arrived  at  City  Point,  a  pet  cat.  belonging  to 
General  Grant,  had  presented  the  General  with  a  little  family 
of  kittens.  On  their  owner's  departure,  the  President  took 
them  into  his  care ;  and,  during  all  those  days  of  battle,  in  the 
intervals  while  he  waited  for  dispatches,  he  relieved  the  pres 
sure  upon  his  heart  and  brain  by  playing  with  these  kittens. 
When  Richmond  had  fallen,  and  he  was  about  to  start  for  the 
front,  he  took  up  one  of  the  kittens,  and  said :  "  Little  kitten, 
I  must  perform  a  last  act  of  kindness  for  you,  before  I  go.  I 
must  open  your  eyes."  He  then  manipulated  the  closed  lids 
as  tenderly  as  a  mother  would  handle  her  child,  until  he  had 
accomplished  his  purpose.  Then  he  put  her  down,  and,  as 
he  stood  enjoying  her  surprise  at  being  able  to  see,  he  said 
sadly :  "  Oh  that  I  could  open  the  eyes  of  my  blinded  fellow- 
countrymen,  as  easily  as  I  have  those  of  that  little  creature ! " 
The  eyes  of  his  blinded  fellow-countrymen  were  soon  opened, 
but  alas !  it  involved  the  closing  of  his  own ! 

Mr.  Lincoln  belied  his  own  estimate  of  his  physical  courage, 
by  going  directly  into  the  fallen  capital,  so  lately  swarming 
with-  armed  enemies,  and  so  crowded  still  with  sullen  rebels. 


510  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

He  did  this  apparently  witnout  a  thought  of  danger,  although 
the  whole  loyal  North  trembled  with  apprehension.  He  went 
up  in  a  ^man-of-war,  on  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  landed  at  the 
Rocketts  below  the  city,  and  with  his  boy  "Tad"  rode  up 
the  remaining  mile  in  a  boat.  He  entered  the  city  in  no  tri 
umphal  car.  No  brilliant  cavalcade  accompanied  him;  but 
on  foot,  with  no  guard  except  the  sailors  who  had  rowed  him 
up  the  James,  he  entered  and  passed  through  the  streets  of 
the  fallen  capital.  But  his  presence  soon  became  known  to 
the  grateful  blacks,  who  pressed  upon  him  with  their  thank 
ful  ejaculations  and  tearful  blessings  on  every  side.  Better 
and  more  expressive  were  the  hats  and  handkerchiefs,  tossed 
in  the  air  by  these  happy  and  humble  people,  than  flags  and 
streamers,  floating  from  masts  and  house-tops.  "Glory  to 
God!  Glory!  Glory!"  shouted  the  black  multitude  of  liber 
ated  slaves.  "I  thank  you  dear  Jesus,  that  I  behold  Presi 
dent  Linkum,"  exclaimed  a  woman  standing  in  her  humble 
doorway,  weeping  in  the  fullness  of  her  joy.  Another,  wild 
with  delight,  could  do  nothing  but  jump,  and  strike  her  hands, 
and  shout  with  wild  reiteration:  "Bless  de  Lord!  Bless  de 
Lord!  Bless  de  Lord!"  At  last,  the  streets  became  choked 
with  the  multitude,  and  soldiers  were  called  to  clear  the  way. 
A  writer  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  to  whom  the  author  is  in 
debted  for  the  most  of  these  particulars,  says  that  one  old  ne 
gro  exclaimed:  "May  de  good  Lord  bless  you,  President 
Linkum!"  while  he  removed  his  hat,  and  the  tears  of  joy 
rolled  down  his  cheeks.  "The  President,"  the  account  pro 
ceeds,  "removed  his  own  hat,  and  bowed  in  silence;  but  it 
was  a  bow  which  upset  the  forms,  laws,  customs,  and  cere 
monies  of  centuries.  It  was  a  death-shock  to  chivalry,  and 
a  mortal  wound  to  caste." 

After  a  visit  to  General  "Weitzel's  headquarters,  and  a  drive 
around  the  city,  he  returned  to  City  Point.  On  Thursday, 
he  visited  the  city  again,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Lincoln  and 
the  Vice-president,  with  others.  While  he  was  in  Richmond 
on  this  occasion,  he  held  important  interviews  with  leading 
citizen?;,  prominent  among  whom  was  Judge  Campbell,  one 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  511 

of  the  parties  in  the  Hampton  Roads  conference.  The  Judge 
urged  him  to  issue  a  proclamation,  permitting  the  Virginia 
Legislature  to  assemble,  under  the  representation  that  that 
body  would  recognize  the  situation,  and  withdraw  the  Virginia 
troops  from  the  support  of  Lee.  After  his  return  to  City 
Point,  he  addressed  a  note  to  General  Weitzel,  directing  him 
to  permit  the  legislature  to  assemble,  and  to  protect  them  until 
they  should  attempt  some  action  hostile  to  the  United  States. 
He  was  also  directed  to  show  the  note  to  Judge  Campbell, 
but  not  to  make  it  public.  The  Judge  sent  an  account  of  his 
interview  and  its  results  to  the  Eichmond  Whig;  and,  this 
having  been  copied  into  the  Washington  Chronicle,  after  Mr. 
Lincoln's  return  to  the  federal  capital,  the  President  was  very 
indignant.  The  breach  of  confidence  on  the  part  of  Judge 
Campbell,  and  the  misrepresentations  which  accompanied  it, 
quite  exhausted  his  patience.  As  Lee's  army  had  surren 
dered,  and  there  was  no  further  apology  for  the  desire  to  have 
the  legislature  assemble,  he  revoked  his  permission  for  its  con 
vocation.  It  was  evident,  in  a  cabinet  meeting  that  was  held 
a  few  days  afterward,  that  Judge  Campbell's  course  had  much 
embittered  him.  He  had  been  inclined  to  trust  in  the  personal 
honor  of  rebels  with  whom  he  had'  b?en  brought  in  contact; 
but  he  evidently  felt  that  his  confidence  had  been  practiced 
upon  by  Campbell;  and  the  fact  stung  him  to  indignation, 
if  not  anger. 

The  order  produced  an  unpleasant  effect  upon  the  public 
mind,  and  its  revocation  was  received  with  gratification  all 
over  the  North.  The  revocation  did  not  come  early  enough, 
however,  to  save  serious  difficulty  in  other  quarters ;  for  Sher 
man,  negotiating  with  Johnston,  patterned  his  policy  upon 
that  of  the  President,  and  brought  down  upon  himself  the 
reprobation  of  the  loyal  press  of  the  country — reprobation 
which,  in  extreme  instances,  assumed  the  form  of  direct 
charges  of  disloyalty  against  this  gallant  and  most  loyal  sol 
dier.  But  Johnston  surrendered ;  and  soon  there  was  not  an 
army  of  the  rebellion  that  had  not  given  itself  up  to  our 
forces,  or  been  disbanded  and  scattered. 


512  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

The  great  rebellion  was  ended.  General  Grant  reached 
Washington  on  the  thirteenth  of  April,  and  held  an  interview 
with  the  President  and  Mr.  Stanton,  the  result  of  which  was 
the  issue  of  an  order  from  the  War  Department  on  the  same 
day,  or,  rather,  of  a  statement  that  orders  would  immediately 
be  issued,  to  stop  drafting  and  recruiting,  to  curtail  purchases 
for  arms,  ammunition  and  supplies,  to  reduce  the  number  of 
general  and  staff  officers  to  the  necessities  of  the  service,  and 
to  remove  military  restrictions  on  trade  and  commerce. 

The  American  people  were  floating  on  the  high  tide  of  joy. 
All  were  glad  and  happy ;  and,  as  they  returned  their  thanks 
to  the  Giver  of  all  good  for  victory  and  peace,  they  did  not 
forget  the  instrument  he  had  used  in  the  execution  of  his 
plans.  Mr.  Lincoln's  name. was  on  every  tongue.  The  pa 
tient  man  who  had  suffered  the  pain  of  a  thousand  deaths 
during  the  war — who  had  been  misconstrued,  maligned,  and 
condemned  by  personal  and  party  enemies,  and  questioned 
and  criticised  by  captious  friends, — was  the  man  above  all 
others  who  stood  in.  the  full  sunshine  of  the  popular  affection. 
His  motives  were  vindicated,  his  policy  had  been  sanctioned 
by  success,  and  his  power  had  been  proved.  He  was  the  ac 
knowledged  savior  of  his  country,  and  the  liberator  of  a  race. 
He  had  solved  the  great  problem  of  popular  government ;  he 
had  settled  the  great  question  of  African  slavery  on  the  con 
tinent.  He  had  won  a  glorious  place  in  history ;  and  his  name 
had  been  committed  to  the  affectionate  safe-keeping  of  man 
kind. 

On  the  evening  of  the  eleventh  of  April,  the  White  House 
was  brilliantly  illuminated ;  and  to  the  immense  crowd  gath 
ered  around  it,  to  express  their  joyous  congratulations,  Mr. 
Lincoln  delivered  his  last  public  address.  He  said  little  about 
victory,  further  than  briefly  to  express  his  acknowledgments 
to  the  soldiers  who  had  fought,  and  the  God  who  had  pros 
pered  their  arms ;  but,  turning  his  eyes  from  the  past,  he  re 
garded  the  future,  and  the  new  duties  and  perplexities  which 
it  was  certain  to  bring.  "Reconstruction"  was  the  burden  of 
his  speech ;  and  he  explained,  at  length,  his  connection  with 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  513 

the  efforts  at  reconstruction  which  had  taken  place  in  Louisi 
ana.  The  question  as  to  whether  the  rebel  states  were  out 
of  the  Union,  or  in  it,  he  regarded  as  a  "  pernicious  abstrac 
tion."  "We  all  agree,"  said  he,  "that  the  seceded  states,  so 
called,  are  out  of  their  proper  practical  relation  with  the  Union : 
and  that  the  sole  object  of  the  government,  civil  and  military, 
in  regard  to  those  states,  is  to  again  get  them  into  their  proper 
practical  relation."  He  believed  the  state  government  of 
Louisiana  offered  for  that  state  a  practicable  plan  of  return, 
but  he  was  not  committed  to  that  plan  alone.  The  quickest 
way  back  to  the  old  relations  with  the  government  was  the 
best  way,  without  any  regard  to  any  finely  spun  theories. 

The  Louisiana  Legislature  had  ratified  the  Constitutional 
amendment  abolishing  slavery,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  said :  "  These 
twelve  thousand  persons  (the  loyal  element  of  the  state)  are 
thus  fully  committed  to  the  U^nion,  and  the  perpetuation  of 
freedom  in  the  state — committed  to  the  very  things,  and  nearly 
all  the  things,  the  nation  wants  ;  and  they  ask  the  nation's 
recognition,  and  its  assistance  to  make  good  this  committal. 
Now,  if  we  reject  and  spurn  them,  we  do  our  utmost  to  disor 
ganize  and  disperse  them.  We,  in  fact,  say  to  the  white  man : 
'You  are  worthless,  or  worse:  we  will  neither  help  you  nor  be 
helped  by  you.'  To  the  blacks  we  say:  'This  cup  of  liberty 
which  these,  your  old  masters,  held  to  your  lips,  we  will  dash 
from  you,  and  leave  you  to  the  chances  of  gathering  the  spilled 
and  scattered  contents  in  some  vague  and  undefined  when, 
where,  and  how.'  ' 

All  the  President's  plans  considered  the  welfare  of  the 
black  man  as  well  as  the  white ;  and  there  will  be  no  better 
opportunity  to  give  his  views  of  negro  suffrage  than  this  page 
will  furnish.  This  great  question,  which  promises  io  be  a 
stone  of  stumbling  and  a  rock  of  offence  to  the  party  which 
placed  Mr.  Lincoln  in  power — a  stone  which  is  certain,  in 
the  administration  of  God's  providence,  to  become  the  head 
of  the  corner — was  one  which  he  had  carefully  considered, 
and  upon  which,  with  his  respect  for  human  rights,  he  could 
have  but  one  opinion.  In  a  letter  to  the  late  General  Wads- 
33 


514  LIFE   OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

worth,  he  once  said:  "You  desire  to  know,  in  the  event  of 
our  complete. success  in  the  field,  the  same  being  followed  by 
loyal  and  cheerful  submission  on  the  part  of  the  South,  if 
universal  amnesty  should  not  be  accompanied  with  universal 
suffrage.  Since  you  know  my  private  inclinations  as  to  what 
terms  should  be  granted  to  the  South,  in  the  contingency 
mentioned,  I  will  here  add  that,  if  our  success  should  thus  be 
realized,  followed  by  such  desired  results,  I  cannot  see,  if  uni 
versal  amnesty  is  (/ranted,  how,  under  the  circumstances,  I  can 
avoid  exacting  in  return  universal  suffrage,  or  at  least  suffrage 
on  the  basis  of  intelligence  and  military  service" 

Thus  stands  Mr.  Lincoln's  record  on  this  question,  and  thus 
must  stand  the  record  of  every  man  whose  love  of  men  and 
whose  regard  for  human  rights  are  as  genuine  as  those  which 
moved  the  heart  of  the  good  President.  The  party  which 
loved  and  supported  Mr.  Lincoln  cannot  deny  the  principle 
of  universal  suffrage,  without  denying  both  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
the  everlasting  principles  of  right  upon  which  he  based  his 
action — upon  which  they  have  won  all  their  successes.  And 
if,  for  immediate  advantage,  in  the  strife  for  power,  they  so 
far  turn  their  backs  upon  their  record  as  to  deny  manhood  to 
the  African,  and  refuse  to  recognize  his  service  in  the  salva 
tion  of  the  republic,  they  are  sure  to  be  defeated,  as  they  wiD 
be  certain  to  deserve"  defeat. 


CHAPTEE   XXX. 

Mn.  LINCOLN"  had  reached  the  pinnacle  of  his  life.  By 
careful  and  painful  steps  he  had  mounted  from  the  foot  of  the 
ladder  of  American  society  to  its  topmost  round.  He  had 
done  this  by  the  forces  of  his  nature  and  character,  without 
adventitious  aids,  or  favoring  circumstances.  He  had  accom 
plished  the  greatest  work  for  his  country  and  for  mankind 
that  had  ever  been  committed  to  a  mortal  to  perform.  A  great 
nation  had  been  saved  from  wreck  by  his  hands ;  a  race  had 
been  disenthralled  by  his  word  and  his  policy ;  and  a  popular 
government  had  been  established  in  the  faith  and  affections  of 
its  subjects,  and  in  the  respect  of  the  governments  of  the 
world.  His  enemies  had  been  silenced,  his  friends  had  been 
reassured,  his  motives  and  his  policy  had  been  vindicated,  and 
his  person  had  come  to  be  regarded  with  tender  affection  by 
tens  of  millions  of  men.  Up  to  him  were  wafted  the  accla 
mations  of  millions  of  freemen.  Across  the  ocean  came  ap 
preciative  and  plauditory  words  from  other  continents.  Ben 
edictions  were  breathed  upon  him  by  multitudes  of  humble 
people  whom  he  had  enfranchised.  Is  it  strange  that  the  in 
stincts  of  his  own  logical  mind  should  forecast  death  as  the 
next  logical  step  in  such  a  course  ? 

Throughout  all  the  later  months  and  years  of  the  war,  he 
had  freely  said  that  he  did  not  expect  to  outlast  the  rebellion; 
but  in  the  flush  of  triumph, — in  his  large,  loving,  and  liberal 
plans  for  the  good  of  the  people  whom  the  fortunes  of  war 
had  left  at  his  feet, — in  his  dreams  of  the  future  union  and  liar- 


516  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

mony  of  the  states, — lie  forgot  tliis,  and  was  hopeful  and  happy. 
He  talked  to  his  friends,  his  cabinet,  and  his  family  cheerfully 
of  the  future,  and  gratefully  of  the  past.  He  had  no  resent 
ment  to  gratify,  no  revenge  to  inflict,  no  malicious  passion 
that  clamored  for  indulgence.  The  thought  of  being  able  to 
prove  to  the  people  of  the  South  that  he  owed  them  no  ill- 
will,  and  the  determination  to  deal  with  them  as  gently  as 
would  be  for  the  public  safety,  filled  his  magnanimous  spirit 
with  the  sweetest  satisfaction. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the  possibility  of  assassina 
tion  was  ever  long  absent  from  his  mind,  during  the  four  years 
of  his  presidency.  The  threats  began  before  he  left  Spring 
field  for  Washington.  The  attempt  to  assassinate  him  was 
made  upon  the  train  that  bore  him  from  his  home.  It  was 
repeated  upon  that  which  bore  him  from  Cincinnati.  He  ran 
through  the  meshes  of  a  conspiracy  against  his  life  at  Balti 
more.  He  was  in  the  constant  receipt  of  threatening  letters : 
and  these  were  kept  in  a  package  by  themselves,  appropri 
ately  labeled.  He  did  not  permit  these,  however,  to  trouble 
him,  regarding  them  as  only  the  malicious  missives  of  bullies 
and  cowards.  He  undoubtedly  regarded  himself  as  always 
in  a  dangerous  position,  though  the  fact  had  no  tendency  to 
make  him  careful  of  himself.  He  reasoned  upon  this,  as  upon 
other  subjects,  and  could  never  see  that  anything  would  be 
gained  by  his  death.  He  had  no  comprehension  of  the  malice 
that  would  delight  in  his  assassination,  as  a  measure  of  revenge. 
He  supposed  that  every  man  would  require  some  rational  pur 
pose  to  be  answered  by  so  terrible  a  crime.  "If  they  kill  me," 
said  he,  on  one  occasion,  "  the  next  man  will  be  just  as  bad  for 
them;  and,  in  a  country  like  this,  where  our  habits  are  simple, 
and  must  be,  assassination  is  always  possible,  and  will  corne 
if  they  are  determined  upon  it."  He  went  to  and  from  the 
War  Department  with  perfect  freedom ;  drove  out  to  the  Sol 
diers'  Home,  his  summer  residence,  and  back  at  night,  often  in 
an  open  carriage,  alone.  He  walked  the  streets  of  Washing 
ton  at  night,  with  only  an  unarmed  companion,  who  trembled 
with  the  apprehension  of  the  possible  consequences  of  such 


LIFE   OF'  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  517 

an  exposure;  Mr.  Seward,  in  reply  to  a  letter  from  Hon. 
John  Bigelow,  the  American  consul  in  Paris,  wrote  under 
date  of  July  15th,  1864:  "There  is  no  doubt  that,  from  a  pe 
riod  anterior  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  insurrection,  plots  and 
conspiracies  for  the  purposes  of  assassination  have  been  fre 
quently  formed  and  organized."  Mr.  Bigelow  had  reported 
to  Mr.  Seward  a  plot  which  had  become  known  abroad.  Mr. 
Seward  added:  "Assassination  is  not  an  American  practice 
or  habit ;  and  one  so  vicious  and  so  desperate  cannot  be  en 
grafted  into  our  political  system.  This  conviction  of  mine 
has  steadily  gained  strength  since  the  civil  war  began.  Ev 
ery  day's  experience  confirms  it."  Notwithstanding  Mr.  Sew 
ard' s  theory,  plots  were  formed  against  his  own  life,  as  well 
as  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln — plots,  indeed,  embracing  more  than 
these  two  persons,  and  extending  to  nearly  all  the  prominent 
men  in  the  government  and  in  its  military  service.  General 
Grant  and  General  Sherman  were  both  the  unconscious  ob 
jects  of  deadly  conspiracies.  It  is  now  known  that,  not  only 
in  the  States,  but  in  Canada  and  Europe,  plots  of  this  char 
acter  were  concocted ;  and  it  is  believed  that,  on  one  occasion, 
the  President  actually  took  poison,  in  the  drugs  that  were  pre 
scribed  for  him  by  his  physician,  and  prepared  in  one  of  the 
shops  of  the  city. 

Secretary  Seward,  even  before  he  came  so  near  to  death 
through  one  of  these  conspiracies,  was  compelled  to  give  up 
his  theory,  and  to  acknowledge  that  he  and  the  President 
were  in  positive  danger. 

The  morning  of  the  fourteenth  of  April  was  spent  by  Mr. 
Lincoln  mainly  in  interviews  with  his  friends.  Among  those 
who  called  was  Speaker  Colfax,  who  was  about  setting  out 
upon  an  overland  journey  to  the  Pacific  coast,  a  journey  which 
has  since  been  satisfactorily  accomplished;  and  to  him  the 
President  entrusted  a  verbal  message  to  the  miners,  assuring 
them  of  his  friendliness  to  their  interests,  and  telling  them 
that  their  prosperity  was  identified  with  the  prosperity  of  the 
nation.  General  Grant,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  in  the 
city ;  and  he  was  invited  to  be  present  at  the  cabinet  meeting 


618  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

held  during  the  day.  In  public  and  social  duties  the  day 
passed  away;  and  in  the  evening  Mr.  Colfax  came  again. 
George  Ashmun  of  Massachusetts  also  came  in,  and  to  him 
Mr.  Lincoln  gave  the  following  little  note  in  pencil — the  last 
words  he  ever  wrote: 

"Allow  Mr.  Ashmun  and  friend*  to  come  in  at  9  A.  M.  to-morrow. 

"A  LINCOLN." 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  General  Grant  were  the  lions  of  the  day ; 
and  the  manager  of  Ford's  theater,  with  a  keen  eye  to  busi 
ness,  had  not  only  invited  them  to  witness  that  night  the  rep 
resentation  of  "  Our  American  Cousin,"  but  announced  them 
both  as  positively  to  be  present.  The  Washington  papers  of 
the  fourteenth  contained  the  following  "personal  notice:" 

"  Lieutenant-general  Grant,  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  ladies, 
will  occupy  the  state  box  at  Ford's  theater  to-night,  to  witness  Miss 
Laura  Keene's  company  in  Tom  Taylor's  'American  Cousin/" 

General  Grant  did  not  desire  to  attend,  and  so  left  the  city. 
The  President  was  equally  disinclined  to  the  entertainment ; 
but,  as  his  presence  and  that  of  General  Grant  also  had  been 
pledged  to  the  people,  he  saw  that  there  would  be  great  dis 
appointment  if  he  should  fail  them ;  and,  when  Mrs.  Lincoln 
entered  the  President's  room  to  inquire  what  decision  he 
had  arrived  at,  he  said  that  he  had  concluded  to  go.  He  in 
vited  both  Mr.  Ashmun  and  Mr.  Colfax  to  accompany  him, 
but  both  declined,  pleading  other  engagements ;  and  Mr.  arid 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  attended  to  the  carriage  by  Mr.  Ashmun,  left 
without  other  company,  and  drove  directly  to  the  house  of 
Senator  Harris,  where  they  took  in  Miss  Hams,  a  daughter 
of  the  Senator,  and  Major  Eathbone,  a  son  of  the  Senator's 
wife,  who  happened  to  be  in  at  the  time.  The  party  reached 
the  theater  at  twenty  minutes  before  nine  o'clock,  to  find  the 
house  filled  in  every  part ;  and,  as  they  passed  to  their  seats 
in  the  private  box  reserved  for  them,  the  whole  assembly  rose 
and  cheered  them,  with  the  most  cordial  enthusiasm.  This 

*  Judge  C.  P.  Daly  of  Now  York. 


LIFE    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  519 

demonstration  was  intended  as  an  expression  of  good-will, 
and  as  a  popular  congratulation  on  the  victories  that  had 
brought  the  rebellion  to  a  close.  The  President  bowed  to  the 
audience,  took  his  seat,  and  was  soon  afterwards  absorbed  in 
the  scenes  of  mimic  life  upon  the  stage.  Herejlet  us  leave 
him,  to  trace  the  movements  of  another  person. 

At  half-past  eleven  o'clock,  on  the  morning  of  the  four 
teenth,  John  Wilkes  Booth  a  young  actor  who  had  been 
openly  disloyal  throughout  the  war,  visited  Ford's  theater, 
where  he  was  informed  that  a  box  had  been  taken  for  the  Pres 
ident  and  General  Grant.  Then  he  went  to  a  stable,  and  en 
gaged  a  high-strung  mare  for  a  saddle-ride,  which  he  pro 
posed  to  take  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon.  Fronnthe  stable 
he  proceeded  to  the  Kirkwood  Hotel,  where  he  sent  up  to 
Vice-president  Johnson  a  card,  bearing  the  words :  "  I  do  n't 
wish  to  disturb  /ou;  are  you  at  home?"  To  this,  his  signa 
ture  was  appended ;  and  it  drew  from  Mr.  Johnson  only  the 
response  that  he  was  very  b'usily  engaged.  At  four  o'clock, 
he  called  for  the  mare,  and  rods  away,  leaving  her  at  last  at 
a  point  convenient  for  his  further  purposes.  In  the  evening, 
he  took  her  from  her  hiding-place,  and  rode  to  the  theater. 
Summoning  one  Spangler,  a  scene-shifter,  he  left  the  animal 
in  his  charge,  to  be  held  until  he  should  return.  Then  he  as 
cended  to  the  dress-circle,  looked  in  upon  the  stage  and  the 
audience,  and  gradually  worked  his  way  through  the  crowd 
packed  in  the  rear  of  the  dress-circle,  toward  the  box  occu 
pied  by  the  Presidential  party.  This  box  was  at  the  end  of 
the  dress-circle,  next  the  stage ;  and  was  reached  by  passing 
in  the  rear  of  the  dress-circle,  to  a  door  opening  first  into  a 
dark,  narrow  passage,  and  then  by  two  doors  opening  from 
the  passage.  This  passage  was  contrived  so  that  the  box 
might  be  made  a  double  one,  when  occasion  required,  by  se 
curing  facilities  for  a  double  entrance,  an  inside  sliding  parti 
tion  completing  the  arrangement.  To  the  entrance  of  this 
passage,  Booth  forced  himself;  and,  after  showing  a  card  to  ths 
President's  servant,  and  saying  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  sent  for 
him,  he  passed  info  the  passage,  and  fastened  the  door  behind 


520  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

him.  Presenting  himself  at  the  door  of  the  box,  he  took  a 
quick  survey  of  the  interior.  He  found  everything  favorable 
to  his  purpose ;  and,  taking  a  small  Derringer  pistol  in  one 
hand,  and  a  double-edged  dagger  in  the  other,  he  thrust  his  arm 
into  the  entrance,  where  the  President,  sitting  in  an  arm-chair, 
presented  to  his  full  view  the  back  and  side  of  his  head.  A 
flash,  a  sharp  report,  a  puff  of  smoke,  and  the  fatal  bullet  had 
entered  the  President's  brain.  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  stir.  Peo 
ple  thought  that  the  report  of  the  pistol  had  some  connection 
with  the  play  ;  but  the  awful  truth  was  soon  apparent.  There 
was  no  escape  for  the  murderer  by  the  way  through  which  he 
had  reached  the  box ;  for  the  crowd  was  too  great.  Major 
Rathbone,  the  instant  he  comprehended  what  was  done,  sprang 
upon  Booth,  who,  throwing  him  off,  dropped  his  pistol,  and 
struck  him  with  his  dagger,  inflicting  a  flesh  wound  upon  the 
officer's  arm.  Then  the  murderer  rushed  to  the  front  of  the 
box,  parted  the  folds  of  the  flag  with  which  It  was  draped  for 
the  occasion,  and  leaped  to  the  stage,  half  falling  as  he  de 
scended,  his  spurs  having  caught  in  the  drapery.  Then 
springing  to  his  feet,  he  uttered  with  theatrical  emphasis  the 
words  of  the  state  motto  of  Virginia:  "Sic  semper  tyrannis!" 
and  added:  "The  South  is  avenged."  Quickly  turning,  he 
rushed  from  the  stage,  striking  from  his  path  all  whom  he  met, 
and,  escaping  at  the  rear  of  the  theater,  was  in  his  saddle  and 
away  before  the  party  around  the  President  and  the  audience 
fully  comprehended  what  had  been  done.  Only  a  single  man 
in  the  audience  took  in  at  once  the  meaning  of  the  scene ;  and, 
although  he  undertook  to  follow  Booth,  the  assassin  had  dis 
appeared  before  he  reached  the  door. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  screamed,  and  Miss  Harris  called  for  water. 
The  scene  among  the  audience  defies  all  description.  Women 
shrieked  and  fainted.  Men  called  for  vengeance.  The  most 
terrible  uproar  prevailed.  Laura  Keene,  the  actress,  begged 
the  audience  to  be  calm,  and  entered  the  box  from  the  stage, 
bearing  w^ater  and  cordials.  The  President  was  entirely  un 
conscious;  and,  as  soon  as  the  surgeons,  who  had  gathered 
quickly  to  him,  had  ascertained  the  position  and  nature  of  the 


LIFE   OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  521 

wound,  the  helpless  form  was  borne  across  Tenth  street  to  the 
house  of  a  Mr.  Peterson.  Surgeon-general  Barnes,  after  ex 
amination,  pronounced  the  wound  a  mortal  one.  The  words  fell 
upon  the  ears  of  Secretary  Stanton,  who,  bursting  into  tears, 
responded:  "Oh,  no!  General,  no,  no!"  Attorney-general 
Speed,  Secretary  Welles,  Postmaster-general  Dennison,  Gen 
eral  Meigs,  Mr.  McCulloch,  the  new  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  and  Senator  Sumner  were  gathered  around  the  bed,  the 
last  holding  one  of  the  President's  hands,  and  sobbing  like  a 
child.  In  an  adjoining  room,  supported  by  her  son  Robert 
and  Mrs.  Senator  Dixon,  sat  Mrs.  Lincoln,  bewildered  and 
.en  •  lied  by  her  great  grief.  Around  the  unconscious  form  of 
the  President  the  great  men  of  the  nation  bowed,  and  wept, 
watching  the  heaving  of  his  breast,  until,  at  twenty-two  min 
utes  past  seven  in  the  morning,  he  breathed  his  last. 

In  another  part  of  the  city,  at  the  moment  of  the  murder 
and  alarm  at  the  theater,  another  scene  of  terrible  violence 
was  enacted,  which  showed  that  one  of  the  many  conspira 
cies  that  had  been  organized  to  destroy  the  heads  of  the  gov 
ernment  was  in  process  of  execution. 

A  few  days  previously,  Mr.  Seward  had  been  thrown  from 
his  carriage,  and  severely  injured.  He  was  still  very  low, 
and  under  the  most  careful  medical  and  surgical  treatment. 
A  little  after  ten,  on  this  fatal  evening,  the  door-bell  of  his 
residence  was  rung  by  a  man  who  said  he  came  with  medicine 
from  Dr.  Verdi,  Mr.  Seward's  physician,  which  it  was  neces 
sary  for  him  to  deliver  in  person.  The  servant  who  admitted 
him  protested  that  no  one  was  permitted  to  see  Mr.  Seward. 
The  man  pushed  him  aside,  and  mounted  the  stairs.  When  he 
was  about  to  enter  the  Secretary's  room,  Mr.  Frederick  Sew 
ard,  the  Secretary's  son,  appeared,  and  inquired  his  business. 
He  gave  the  same  reply  that  he  had  given  to  the  servant,  when 
the  gentleman  told  him  that  he  could  not  enter.  In  return 
for  this  refusal,  Mr.  Frederick  Seward  received  a  stunning 
blow  upon  his  forehead,  with  the  butt  of  a  pistol;  and  the 
man  pushed  on  to  the  bedside  of  the  Secretary,  mounted  the 
bed,  and,  aiming  at  Mr.  Seward's  throat,  stabbed  him  three 


522  1,11-25   Olf    ABRAHAM    LIXCOLX. 

times.  He  would  undoubtedly  have  killed  him,  had  he  not 
been  seized  around  the  body  by  the  nurse  of  Mr.  Seward,  a 
soldier  named  Robinsofl.  While  the  assassin  was  struggling 
with  Robinson,  Mr.  Seward  summoned  sufficient  strength  to 
roll  himself  off  the  bed.  The  murderer,  inflicting  severe 
wounds  upon  Robinson,  burst  away  from  him,  rushed  to  the 
door,  forced  his  way  down  stairs,  stabbing  Major  Augustus 
Seward  and  one  of  his  father's  attendants  on  the  way,  and 
escaped  into  the  street.  He  had  stabbed  no  less  than  five 
persons.  This  conspirator,  known  afterwards  to  the  public 
by  the  name  of  Payne,  was  Lewis  Payne  Powell. 

The  effect  of  these  two  tragedies  upon  the  popular  feeling 
in  the  city  of  Washington  may  possibly  be  imagined,  but  it 
cannot  be  described.  Some  cried  for  retaliation  upon  the 
leaders  of  a  rebellion  that  could  inspire  such  deeds,  and  for 
revenge  even  upon  the  helpless  prisoners  in  our  hands.  Others 
were  possessed  by  a  sense  of  horror ;  others  by  emotions  of 
terror ;  others  by  an  overwhelming  grief;  and  all  by  a  feeling 
of  uncertainty  and  insecurity.  How  wide  was  the  conspiracy? 
How  comprehensive  was  the  plot  ?  Who  were  the  designated 
victims?  What  would  be  the  next  development?  There  was 
no  sleep  in  Washington  that  night.  A  terrible  solemnity  took 
possession  of  the  noisy  capital.  Only  the  military  were  busy. 
All  the  drinking  shops  of  the  city  were  closed,  the  outlets  of 
the  city  were  guarded,  and  every  necessary  step  was  taken 
for  the  protection  of  the  person's  of  the  other  members  of  the 
government. 

The  effect  of  these  terrible  events  upon  the  popular  heart 
throughout  the  country  was  touching  in  the  extreme.  From 
the  sunniest  hills  of  joy,  the  people  went  down  weeping  into 
the  darkest  valleys  of  affliction.  The  long,  sad  morning  of  the 
President's  death  was  full  of  the  •sound  of  tolling  bells.  It 
was  everywhere  the  same.  By  a  common  impulse  the  bells 
from  every  tower  in  the  land  gave  voice  to  the  popular  grief, 
and  from  every  dwelling  and  store  and  shop,  from  every  church 
and  public  building,  the  insignia  of  sorrow  were  displayed. 
The  markets  were  literally  cleared  of  every  fabric  that  could 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  523 

be  used  for  the  drapery  of  mourning.  Men  met  in  the 
streets,  and  pressed  each  other's  hands  in  silence,  or  burst 
into  tears.  The  whole  nation,  which,  the  previous  day,  was 
jubilant  and  hopeful,  was  precipitated  into  the  depths  of  a 
profound  and  tender  woe.  Millions  felt  that  they  had  lost 
a  brother,  or  a  father,  or  a  dear  personal  friend.  It  was  a 
grief  that  brought  the  nation  more  into  family  sympathy  than 
it  had  been  since  the  days  of  the  Eevolution.  Men  came 
together  in  public  meetings,  to  give  expression  to  their  grie£ 
The  day  on  which  the  murder  was  announced  to  the  country 
was  Saturday;  and  on  Sunday  all  the  churches  were  draped 
with  mourning;  and  from  every  pulpit  in  the  land  came  the 
voice  of  lamentation  over  the  national  loss,  and  of  eulogy  to 
the  virtues  of  the  good  President  who  had  been  so  cruelly 
murdered.  There  were  men  engaged  in  the  rebellion  who 
turned  from  the  deed  with  horror.  Many  of  these  had  learned 
something  of  the  magnanimity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  character; 
and  they  felt  that  the  time  would  come  when  the  South 
would  need  his  friendship.  These  regarded  his  death  as  a 
great  calamity ;  but  it  must  seem  doubtful  whether  those  who 
could  starve  helpless  prisoners,  and  massacre  black  soldiers 
after  they  had  surrendered,  and  murder  in  cool  blood  hund 
reds  of  Union  men,  for  no  crime  but  affection  for  the  govern 
ment  which  Mr.  Lincoln  represented,  could  have  been  greatly 
shocked  by  his  assassination.  -They  made  haste,  however,  to 
disown  and  denounce  the  deed ;  and  pretended  to  regard  it,  not 
as  an  act  of  the  rebellion,  but  as  the  irresponsible  act  of  a 
crazed  desperado. 

After  the  death  of  the  President,  his  body  was  removed  to, 
the  White  House,  from  which  he  had  gone  on  the  previous 
evening,  under  such  happy  circumstances.  A  room  had  been 
prepared  for  its  reception ;  and  there  it  was  placed  in  a  coffin, 
which  rested  upon  a  grand  catafalque.  The  affection  and 
grief  of  the  people  were  manifested  by  offerings  of  flowers, 
with  which  the  room  was  kept  constantly  supplied.  On  Mon 
day,  the  seventeenth,  a  meeting  of  congressmen  and  others 
was  held  at  the  Capitol,  presided  over  by  Hon.  Lafayette  S. 


524  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN". 

Foster  of  Connecticut.  A  committee,  of  which  Senator  Sum- 
ner  of  Massachusetts  was  chairman,  was  appointed  to  make 
arrangements  for  the  funeral;  and  this  committee  reported  at 
an  adjourned  meeting,  held  at  four  o'clock  in  the.  afternoon, 
that  they  had  selected  as  pall-bearers  Messrs.  Foster,  Mor 
gan,  Johnson,  Yates,  Wade,  and  Conness,  on  the  part  of  the 
Senate,  and  Messrs.  Dawes,  Coffroth,  Smith,  Colfax,  Worth- 
ington,  and  Washburne,  on  the  part  of  the  House.  They  also 
presented  the  names  of  gentlemen,  one  from  each  state  and 
territory  of  the  Union,  to  act  as  a  congressional  committee,  to 
accompany  the  remains  to  their  final  resting-place  in  Illinois. 

Meantime,  the  body  of  the  President  had  been  embalmed ; 
and,  at  ten  o'clock,  on  Tuesday  morning,  the  White  House  was 
thrown  open,  to  give  the  people  an  opportunity  to  take  their 
farewell  of  the  familiar  face,  whose  kind  smile  death  had  for 
ever  quenched.  At  least  twenty-five  thousand  persons  availed 
themselves  of  this  liberty;  and  thousands  more,  seeing  the 
crowd,  turned  back  unsatisfied.  Hundreds  of  those  who 
pressed  around  the  sacred  dust,  uttered  some  affectionate 
word,  or  phrase,  or  sentence.  The  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
white  and  the  black,  mingled  their  tokens  of  affectionate 
regard,  and  dropped  side  by  side  their  tears  upon  the  coffin* 
It  was  humanity  weeping  over  the  dust  of  its  benefactor. 

On  Wednesday,  the  day  of  the  funeral,  all  the  departments 
were  closed,  all  public  work  was  suspended,  flags  were  placed 
at  half-mast,  and  the  public  buildings  were  draped  with 
mourning.  The  funeral  services  were  held  in  the  East  Room, 

o 

which  was  occupied  by  the  relatives  of  the  dece'ased  (with 
the  exception  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  who  was  too  much  prostrated 
to  leave  her  room,)  and  by  governmental  and  judicial  dignita 
ries,  and  such  high  officials  from  the  states  as  had  gathered  to 
the  capital  to  pay  their  last  tribute  of  respect  to  the  illustrious 
dead.  The  ceremonies  were  conducted  with  great  solemnity 
and  dignity.  The  scriptures  were  read  by  Rev.  Dr.  Hale,  of 
the  Episcopal  church ;  the  opening  prayer  was  made  by  Bishop 
Simpson,  of  the  Methodist  church ;  the  funeral  address  was  de 
livered  by  Rev.  Dr.  Gurley,  of  the  Presbyterian  church  which 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  525 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  family  had  attended;  and  the  closing 
.prayer  was  offered  by  Rev.  Dr.  Gray,  the  chaplain  of  the 
Senate,  and  the  pastor  of  a  Baptist  church.  Among  those 
present  from  the  states  were  Governors  Fenton  of  New  York, 
Andrew  of  Massachusetts,  Parker  of  New  Jersey,  Brough  of 
Ohio,  Oglesby .  of  Illinois,  and  Buckingham  of  Connecticut. 
Dr.  Gurley's  tribute  was  a  noble  one — entirely  worthy  of  the 
occasion.  "  Probably  no  man  since  the  days  of  Washington," 
said  he,  "was  ever  so  deeply  and  firmly  imbedded  and  en 
shrined  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  -a^Abraham  Lincoln.  Nor 
was  it  a  mistaken  confidence  and  .love.  He  deserved  it;  de 
served  it  well ;  deserved  it  all.  He  merited  it  by  his  character, 
by  his  acts,  and  by  the  tenor  and  tone  and  spirit  of  his  life. 
*  *  *  His  integrity  was  thorough,  all-pervading,  all-control 
ling  and  incorruptible."  Speaking  of  the  great  national  emer 
gency  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  to  power,  he  said : 
"He  rose  to  the  dignity  and  momentousness  of  the  occasion; 
saw  his  duty  as  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  great  and  imperiled 
people ;  and  he  determined  to  do  his  duty  and  his  whole  duty, 
seeking  the  guidance,  and  leaning  upon  the  arm,  of  Him  of 
whom  it  is  written — '  Pie  giveth  power  to  the  faint,  and  to 
them  that  have  no  might  he  increaseth  strength.'  Yes,  he 
leaned  upon  His  arm.  He  recognized  and  received  the  truth 
that  the  kingdom  is  the  Lord's." 

At  the  close  of  the  ceremonies  in  the  White  House,  the 
august  personages  present,  and  various  bodies  of  civil  and 
military  officials,  joined  in  the  procession  which  accompanied 
the  sacred,  remains  to  the  Capitol.  It  was  the  most  impress 
ive  procession  that  ever  passed  through  the  grand  avenue 
which  leads  from  the  presidential  mansion  to  the  CapitoL 
The  avenue  was  cleared ;  and  every  piazza,  window,  veranda, 
and  house-top,  was  filled  with  eager  but  mournful  faces. 
Funereal  music  filled  the  sweet  spring  air;  and  this  was  the 
only  sound,  except  the  measured  tread  of  feet,  and  the  slow 
roll  of  wheels  upon  the  pavement.  This  procession  was  so 
long  that  the  head  of  it  had  begun  to  disperse  at  the  Capitol, 
before  the  rear  had  passed  the  Treasury  Department.  Aa 


526  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

the  hearse,  drawn  by  six  gray  horses,  reached  the  Capitol 
grounds,  the  bands  burst  forth  in  a  requiem,  and  were  answered 
by  minute-guns  from  the  fortifications.  The  body  of  the 
President  was  borne  into  the  rotunda,  where  Dr.  Gurley  com 
pleted  the  religious  exercises  of  the  occasion.  Here  the  re 
mains  rested,  exposed  to  public  view,  but  guarded  by  soldiery, 
until  the  next  day.  Thousands  who  had  had  no  other  oppor 
tunity  to  take  their  farewell  of  the  beloved  dust  thronged  the 
Capitol  all  night.  The  pageant  of  the  day,  in  many  of  its 
aspects,  was.  never  paralleled  upon  this  continent.  Nothing  like 
it — nothing  approaching  it — had  ever  occurred  in  this  coun 
try,  if,  indeed,  in  the  world. 

While  these  funeral  services  and  ceremonies  were  in  progress 
in  Washington,  similar  ceremonies  were  observed  in  every  part 
of  the  country.  Churches  were  thrown  open,  where  prayer 
and  sermon  and  music  united  in  the  expression  of  affection  for 
the  dead,  and  lamentation  for  the  national  loss.  Great  public 
gatherings  were  held,  in  which  the  memory  of  the  good  Pres 
ident  was  celebrated  in  impulsive  speech  or  studied  eulogy. 
The  whole  nation  suspended  its  business,  and  gave  itself  up 
to  the  mournful  services  and  associations  of  the  day.  Never 
had  such  a  funeral  been  given  to  a  national  ruler.  Never  had 
died  a  man  who  received  such  testimonials  of  universal  affec 
tion  and  grief.  A  whole  nation  mourned  its  dead.  One 
thought  enthralled  every  heart — the  thought  of  a  great,  good 
man — the  father  of  his  people — cruelly  murdered ;  and  all  an 
imosities  were  overwhelmed  in  the  general  grief.  All  detrac 
tion  was  hushed;  and  every  heart  that  had  done  him  wrong, 
made  its  amends  to  his  memory,  and  won  peace  for  itself,  by 
awarding  to  him  his  just  meed  of  praise. 

As  there  wa-s  never  such  a  funeral  as  this,  so  there  was 
never  such  a  procession.  That  which  moved  from  the  White 
House,  on  the  nineteenth,  was  but  the  beginning  of  a  pageant 
that  displayed  its  marvelous  numbers  and  its  ever-varying 
forms,  through  country,  and  village,  and  city,  winding  across 
the  territories  of  vast  states,  along  a  track  of  more  than  fif 
teen  hundred  miles.  The  President  was  to  be  borne  back  to 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  527 

his  own  people,  and  to  be  buried  among  the  scenes  of  his  early 
life.  He  had  told  the  people  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  when  he 
parted  with  them,  more  than  four  years  before,  that  he  owed 
to  them  all  that  he  was.  It  was  but  right  that  they  should 
have  his  dust. 

On  the  twenty-first,  the  funeral   train  left  Washington, 
amid  the  silent  grief  of  thousands  who  had  gathered  to  wit 
ness  its    departure.      With  the  coffin  which  contained  the 
remains  of  the  President,  went  back  to  the  western  home  the 
coffin  which  contained  the  dust  of  his  beloved  Willie,  whose 
death  has  already  been  mentioned ;  and  father  and  son,  in  the 
touching  companionship  of  death,  traveled  together  the  long 
journey.     At  ten  o'clock,  the  train  reached  Baltimore.     Tho 
immense  crowd  that  had  assembled  here  to  pay  their  last 
tribute  of  respect  to  the  departed  President,  was  full  of  its 
suggestions  of  the  change  which  four  years  had  wrought  upon 
the  city.     It  seemed  incredible  that  this  was  the  city  through 
which  the  living  President  had  so  lately  passed,  in  fear  of  the 
fate  which  had  at  last  overtaken  him.     Nothing  that  the  in 
genuity  of  grief  could  devise  was  left  undone  to  make  the 
return  passage  an  imposing  testimonial  to  his  memory.     The 
display  of  military  was  large;  and  all  the  ceremonies  of  the 
occasion  were  such  as  did  honor,  alike  to  the  people  of  the 
city,  anil  to  the  man  they  mourned.     In  the  afternoon,  the  train 
moved  for  Harrisburg,  but  not  until  a  multitude  had  improved 
the  opportunity  to  obtain  a  view  of  the  pale,  dead  face  of  their 
friend.     On  the  way,  new  mourners  were  taken  on;  and  at 
every  considerable  station  people  had  gathered  to  see  the  sol 
emn  pageant  sweep  by.     At  York,  six  ladies  came  into  the 
car,  and  deposited  upon  the  coffin  an  exquisite  wreath  of  flow 
ers,  while  all  who  witnessed  the  affectionate  tribute  were  moved 
to  tears.     Bells  were  tolled,  and  bands  breathed  forth  their 
plaintive  music,  at  every  village.     The  funeral  obsequies  at 
Harrisburg  were  observed  in  the  evening.     Until  midnight, 
the  people  crowded  into  the  State  Capitol,  to  obtain  a  view  of 
the  remains ;  and,  from  seven  to  nine  on  the  following  morning, 
the  catafalque  was  surrounded  by  the  anxious  throngs  that 


528  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

had  come  in  from  all  the  country  round,  for  the  purpose.  At 
this  place,  as  at  all  the  places  on  the  route,  there  were  new 
pall-bearers,  new  processions,  and  new  expressions  of  the 
popular  grief.  A  very  large  procession  accompanied  the  re 
mains  to  the  cars ;  and  from  Harrisburg  to  Philadelphia  the 
funeral  train  moved  through  crowds  of  people,  assembled  at 
every  convenient  point.  For  several  miles  before  the  train 
reached  Philadelphia,  both  sides  of  the  railway  were  occupied 
by  almost  continuous  lines  of  men,  women,  and  children,  who 
stood  with  uncovered  heads  as  the  train  passed  them. 

Philadelphia  was  draped  with  mourning,  to  give  a  fitting 
reception  to  the  honored  dead.  The  streets  were  filled  with 
people,  long  before  the  funeral  train  arrived;  and  cannon 
thundered  forth  the  announcement  of  its  coming.  All  that 
ingenuity,  aided  by  abundant  means,  could  do,  to  make  the 
fresh  pageant  a  worthy  one,  was  done.  A  new  hearse  had 
been  built,  and  this  was  drawn  by  eight  splendid  black  horsee, 
in  silver-mounted  harnesses.  The  procession  itself  was  com 
posed  of  eleven  divisions,  and  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable, 
in  every  respect,  with  which  the  remains  of  the  President 
were  honored  during  their  long  passage  to  their  resting-place. 
What  place  more  fit  for  the  brief  sojourn  of  these  remains 
than  Independence  Hall,  intimately  associated,  as  it  wae, 
with  the  principles  which  the  sleeping  patriot  had  faithfully 
defended,  and  still  echoing  to  the  ear  of  sorrowing  affection 
with  the  sound  of  his  living  voice  ?  To  this  hall  he  was  borne, 
amid  the  tears  of  a  vast  multitude.  The  hall  was  literally 
filled  with  the  most  exquisite  flowers.  From  ten  o'clock  until 
midnight,  the  people  had  the  opportunity  to  view  the  remains 
of  their  beloved  chief  magistrate.  Then  the  doors  were 

o 

closed ;  but  hundreds  remained  around  the  building  all  night, 
that  they  might  be  first  in  the  morning.  The  following  day 
was  Sunday,  and  from  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  one 
o'clock  on  Monday  morning,  during  which  the  remains  were 
exposed  to  view,  a  dense,  unbroken  stream  of  men,  women, 
and  children,  pressed  into  and  out  of  the  building.  The  Phil 
adelphia  Inquirer,  in  its  report  of  the  occasion,  said :  "  Never 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  529 

before  in  the  history  of  our  city  was  such  a  dense  mass  of  hu 
manity  huddled  together.  Hundreds  of  persons  were  seri 
ously  injured,  from  being  pressed  in  the  mob;  and  many  faint 
ing  females  were  extricated  by  the  police  and  military,  and 
conveyed  to  places  of  security."  After  a  person  was  once  in 
the  line,  it  took  from  four  to  five  hours  to  reach  the  hall.  At 
one  o'clock,  on  Monday  morning,  the  procession  recommenced 
its  march,  bearing  the  body  to  Kensington  Station,  which  was 
left  at  four,  for  the  passage  to  New  York.  Bells  were  tolled, 
mottoes  were  displayed,  minute-guns  were  fired,  and  the  peo 
ple  were  gathered  at  the  various  stations  along  the  entire  pas 
sage  through  New  Jersey.  It  seemed  as  if  the  whole  state 
had  come  to  the  railroad  line,  simply  to  witness  the  passage 
of  the  funeral  train. 

It  is  bewildering  to  read  the  accounts  of  the  ceremonies  at 
New  York,  and  impracticable  to  reproduce  them.  The  pas 
sage  of  the  beloved  remains  into  and  through  the  great  city, 
and  the  interval  of  their  brief  rest  while  they  lay  in  state  in 
the  City  Hall,  were  marked  at  every  stage  by  some  new  and 
impressive  expression  of  the  public  grief.  Minute-guns,  toll 
ing  bells,  requiems  by  choirs  of  singers,  dirges  by  bands  of 
musicians,  military  and  civic  displays,  suspended  business, 
draped  flags,  and  shrouded  private  and  public  buildings, — 
all  mingled  their  testimony  to  the  universal  sorrow,  and  the 
common  wish  to  do  justice  and  honor  to  a  hallowed  mem 
ory.  Every  street  and  avenue  around  the  City  Hall  was  filled 
with  people.  The  first  line  formed  for  viewing  the  remains 
was  three  quarters  of  a  mile  long,  and  reached  far  up  the- 
Bowery.  From  the  moment  when  the  coffin-lid  was  removed, 
until  nearly  noon  on  the  following  day,  through  all  the  long 
night,  the  people  pressed  into  the  hall,  caught  a  hasty  glimpse 
of  the  beloved  features,  and  then  retired ;  until  it  was  esti 
mated  that  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  persons  had  gained 
their  object,  while  it  was  evident  that  twice  that  number  had 
failed  to  win  the  patiently  awaited  vision.  The  military  pro 
cession  which  accompanied  the  remains  to  the  depot  of  the 
Hudson  River  Railroad  was  the  most  remarkable  ever  wit- 
34 


530  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

nessed  in  the  city,  numbering  fully  fifteen  thousand  troops. 
The  carriages  in  the  procession  were  filled  with  federal  and 
state  dignitaries,  and  representatives  of  foreign  governments 
in  full  court  costume;  and  the  line  of  the  procession  was 
thronged  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  by  crowding  multi 
tudes  of  spectators.  The  New  York  Herald's  report  says: 
"  The  people,  with  tearful  eyes,  under  the  shadow  of  the  great 
affliction,  watched  patiently  and  unmurmuringly  the  moving 
of  the  honored  dead  and  the  mournful  procession,  and  silently 
«  breathed  over  them  the  most  heartfelt  and  fervent  prayers. 
•  *  *  Such  an  occasion,  such  a  crowd,  and  such  a  day,  New 
York  may  never  see  again." 

At  a  quarter  past  four,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-fifth, 
the  train  which  bore  .the  funeral  party  from  New  York  left  the 
station,  drawn  by  the  "Union,''  the  same  locomotive  that 
brought  Mr.  Lincoln  to  New  York,  on  his  passage  to  Wash 
ington,  more  than  four  years  previously.  The  train  passed  to 
Albany  without  stopping,  except  at  Poughkeepsie,  where  a 
delegation  from  the  city  government  of  Albany  was  taken  on 
board ;  but  the  people  were  gathered  at  every  point  to  witness 
the  passage.  Mottoes  were  displayed,  draped  flags  floated 
everywhere,  and  all  along  the  route  stood  the  silent  crowds, 
with  heads  uncovered,  as  the  train  which  bore  the  martyred 
President  swept  by.  It  was  nearly  midnight  when  Albany 
was  reached ;  and  it  was  not  until  one  o'clock,  on  the  morning 
of  the  twenty-sixth,  that  the  removal  of  the  coffin-lid  exposed, 
in  the  State  Capitol,  the  white  face  that  so  many  were  anxious 
to  see.  From  that  time  until  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
there  was  a  constant  throng,  the  line  reaching  four  deep  from 
the  State  House  to  the  foot  of  State  street.  It  was  estimated 
that  there  were  sixty  thousand  people  in  the  streets  of  Albany. 
Here  was  another  great  procession ;  and,  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  the  train  started  for  Buffalo.  Throughout  the  en 
tire  range  of  large  and  beautiful  towns  which  the  Central 
Hailroad  threads  in  its  passage^ from  Albany  to  Buffalo,  the 
same  demonstrations  of  grief  and  respect  were  witnessed 
which  had  thus  far  distinguished  the  homeward  journey  of 


LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM    LINCOLN.  531 

the  dead  President.  The  reporter  of  the  New  York  Tribune 
wrote  that  "a  funeral  in  each  house  in  Central  New  York 
would  hardly  have  added  solemnity  to  the  day." 

At  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  twenty-seventh, 
the  funeral  train  reached  Buffalo ;  and  the  sacred  remains  were 
taken  to  St.  James'  Hall,  where,  from  half-past  nine  until  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  next  day,  they  were  visited  by 
an  immense  throng  of  persons.  Buffalo  had  already  paid  its 
tribute  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  memory  by  a  large  procession  on  the 
day  of  the  funeral  ceremonies  at  Washington,  and  emitted  the 
usual  pageant  on  this  occasion ;  but  a  fine  military  escort,  ac 
companied  by  a  crowd  of  citizens,  conducted  the  remains  to 
the  depot  in  the  evening,  which  was  left  by  the  funeral  train 
at  ten  o'clock,  for  the  pursuit  of  the  journey  to  Cleveland. 
The  demonstrations  of  the  popular  grief  which  had  been  wit 
nessed  throughout  the  journey,  were  repeated  at  every  station 
along  the  route.  Not  only  men,  but  women  and  children  were 
up  and  wakeful  all  night,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  car  which 
bore  the  precious  dust  of  the  beloved  ruler;  and,  whenever 
the  train  stopped,  flowers  were  brought  in  and  deposited  upon 
the  coffin.  At  Cleveland,  great  preparations  were  made  to 
receive  the  President's  remains  and  the  funeral  party,  with 
befitting  honors.  A  building  for  the  deposit  of  the  coffin  was 
erected  in  the  park,  that  the  people  might  have  easy  access  to 
it.  The  city  was  crowded  at  an  early  hour,  on  Friday  morn 
ing  ,  and  on  every  hand  were  displayed  the  symbols  of  mourn 
ing.  At  seven  o'clock,  the  train  arrived  at  the  Union  depot, 
amid  a  salute  of  artillery;  and  from  this  point  it  was  taken 
back  to  the  Euclid  Street  station  of  the  Cleveland  and 
Pittsburg  Railroad,  whence  the  procession  moved — the  most 
imposing  pageant  that  this  beautiful  city  on  the  lake  had  ever 
created  or  witnessed.  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  of  the  diocese  of 
Ohio,  read  the  Episcopal  burial  service  on  the  opening  of  the 
coffin,  and  offered  prayer ;  after  which  the  long  procession  filed 
through  the  pavilion,  and  caught  a  last  glimpse  of  the  honored 
dead.  All  day  long,  through  falling  rain,  the  crowd,  unabated 
in  numbers,  pressed  through  the  little  building.  At  ten  o'clock 


532  LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

at  night,  one  hundred  thousand  people  had  viewed  the  re 
mains  ;  and  then  the  gates  were  shut.  Soon  afterwards,  the 
coffin  was  taken  from  its  beautiful  resting-place ;  and,  at  twelve 
o'clock,  the  funeral  party  was  again  in  progress,  on  the  way 
to  Columbus,  the  capital  of  the  state. 

But  why  repeat  the  same  story  again,  and  again?  Why 
say  more  than  that  at  Columbus  and  Indianapolis  and  Chi 
cago,  as  well  as  at  all  the  intermediate  places,  men  did  what 
they  could,  and  all  that  they  could,  to  honor  him  who  had 
died  in  their  service — who  had  been  murdered  for  his  truth  to 
them  and  to  freedom  ?  It  was  a  most  remarkable  exhibition 
of  the  popular  feeling,  and  is  unparalleled  in  history.  There 
was  nothing  empty,  nothing  fictitious  about  it.  There  was 
never  a  sincerer  tribute  of  affection  rendered  to  a  man  than 
this.  It  was  a  costly  one,  but  men  rendered  it  gladly,  and 
hesitated  no  more  at  the  cost  than  if  they  were  expressing 
their  grief  over  the  lost  members  of  their  own  homes. 

It  seemed  almost  like  profanation  of  the  sleeping  President's 
rest,  to  bear  him  so  far,  and  expose  him  so  much ,  but  the  peo 
ple  demanded  it,  and  would  take  no  denial.  All  parties,  all 
sects — friends  and  foes  alike — mingled  in  their  affectionate 
tributes  of  honor  and  sorrow. 

When  the  remains  of  the  President  reached  Chicago,  they 
were  at  home.  They  were  in  the  State  in  which  he  had  spent 
the  most  of  his  life ;  and  the  people  grasped  him  with  almost 
a  selfish  sense  of  ownership.  He  was  theirs.  Only  a  short 
distance  from  the  spot,  lay  his  old  antagonist,  Douglas,  in  his 
last  sleep.  The  party  champions  were  once  more  near  each 
other,  upon  their  favorite  soil;  but  their  eloquent  lips  were 
silent — silent  with  an  eloquence  surpassing  sound,  In  the  proc 
lamation  of  mighty  changes  in  the  nation,  and  the  suggestions 
of  mutability  and  mortality  among  men.  One  more  journey, 
and  the  weary  form  would  rest.  The  people  of  Chicago  hon 
ored  the  dead  President  with  emotions  that  few  thus  far  had 
experienced.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  loved  and  admired  by 
the  people  of  Illinois,  long  before  the  rest  of  the  nation  knew 
anything  about  hire.  His  face  and  voice  had  been  familiar  to 


LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  533 

them  for  many  years ;  and  they  had  introduced  him  to  the 
country  and  to  immortality.  He  had  walked  through  the 
portals  of  the  new  city  into  a  fame  as  wide  as  the  world. 
"He  comes  back  to  us,"  said  the  Chicago  Tribune,  "his  work 
finished,  the  republic  vindicated,  its-  enemies  overthrown  and 
suing  for  peace.  *  *  *  He  left  us,  asking  that  the  prayers 
of  the  people  might  be  offered  to  Almighty  God  for  wisdom 
and  help  to  see  the  right  path  and  pursue  it.  Those  prayers 
were  answered.  He  accomplished  his  work,  and  now  the 
prayers  of  the  people  ascend  for  help,  to  bear  the  great  afflic 
tion  which  has  fallen  upon  them.  Slain  as  no  other  man  has 
been  slain,  cut  down  while  interposing  his  great  charity  and 
mercy  between  the  wrath  of  the  people  and  guilty  traitors, 
the  people  of  Chicago  tenderly  receive  the  sacred  ashes,  with 
bowed  heads  and  streaming  eyes." 

The  remains  reached  Springfield  on  the  morning  of  May 
third.  Throughout  the  long  ride  of  two  hundred  miles, 
over  the  continuous  prairie  that  lies  between  Chicago  and 
Springfield,  there  had  transpired  the  most  affecting  demon 
strations  of  the  popular  grief.  Mottoes,  flags,  minute-guns, 
immense  gatherings  of  the  people,  music,  flowers,  and  copi 
ous  tears,  testified  the  universal  sorrow.  But  in  Springfield 
lived  the  heartiest  mourners.  Here  were  his  intimate  and 
life-long  personal  friends ;  and  they  received  the  dust  of  their 
murttered  neighbor  and  fellow-citizen  with  a  tenderness  of 
which  the  people  of  no  other  community  were  capable.  The 
President  was  forgotten  in  the  companion  and  friend,  endeared 
to  them  by  a  thousand  ties .  The  State  House,  the  Lincoln 
residence,  and  every  store,  public  building,  and  dwelling,  were 
draped  heavily  with  mourning — a  manifestation  of  the  public 
sorrow  which  remained  for  weeks  and  months  after  it  had  dis 
appeared  from  all  other  places  that  had  been  passed  in  the  long 
procession.  For  twenty-four  hours,  or  until  ten  o'clock  on 
the  morning  of  May  fourth,  the  people  pressed  into  the  State 
House,  to  gain  a  last  glimpse  of  their  departed  friend.  Through 
all  the  long  night  of  the  third,  the  steady  tramp  of  thousands 
was  heard,  winding  up  the  stair-case  that  led  to  the  Eepresen- 


534  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

tatives'  Chamber,  and  passing  out  again.  Silently,  patiently, 
sorrowfully,  the  unfailing  procession  moved;  and  it  did  not 
stop  until  the  coffin-lid  was  shut  down,  no  more  to  be  opened. 
The  procession  which  conducted  the  remains  to  their  final 
resting-place,  in  a  tomb  prepared  for  them  at  Oak  Ridge  Cem 
etery,  a  beautiful  spot  about  two  miles  from  the  city,  wa's  un 
der  th,e  immediate  charge  of  Major-general  Joseph  Hooker. 
The  town  was  thronged ;  and  every  train  that  arrived  aug 
mented  the  crowd.  A  large  choir  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
singers  sang  the  familiar  hymn,  beginning  with  the  words, 

"  Children  of  the  Heavenly  King," 

as  the  coffin  was  borne  out  to  the  hearse ;  and  amid  the  sound 
of  solemn  dirges  and  minute-guns  the  mournful  procession 
moved.  The  cemetery  was  occupied  by  a  vast  multitude,  be 
fore  the  procession  arrived ;  and  from  hill  and  tree  they  looked 
tearfully  on,  while  the  coffin  which  contained  the  dust  of  their 
friend  was  consigned  to  its  sepulcher.  By  the  side  of  it  was 
placed  the  coffin  of  "little  Willie;"  while  the  living  sons, 
Robert  and  Thomas,  standing  by  the  tomb,  were  objects  of  an 
affectionate  interest  only  equaled  by  the  deep  sorrow  for  their 
own  and  their  country's  loss.  Rev.  A.  Hale  of  Springfield 
opened  the  religious  exercises  with  prayer ;  a  hymn  written  for 
the  occasion  was  sung ;  selections  from  Scripture,  and  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  last  Inaugural  were  read ;  and  Bishop  Simpson,  a  favorite 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  while  living,  delivered  an  eloquent  address. 
Requiems  and  dirges,  sung  and  played,  completed  the  exer 
cises  of  the  occasion,  closing  with  a  benediction  by  Rev.  Dr. 
Gurley  of  Washington. 

The  address  of  Bishop  Simpson,  able,  affectionate,  and  ex 
cellent  as  it  was,  contained  nothing  more  notable  than  the 
quotation  that  the  speaker  made  from  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
speeches,  uttered  in  1859,  in  which,  speaking  of  the  slave 
power,  he  said:  "Broken  by  it  I,  too,  may  be;  bow  to  it,  I 
never  will.  The  probability  that  we  may  fail  in  the  struggle, 
ought  not  to  deter  us  from  the  support  of  a  cause  which  I 
deem  to  be  just;  and  it  shall  not  deter  me.  If  ever  I  feel 


LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  535 

the  soul  within  ifie  elevate  and  expand  to  those  dimensions  not 
wholly  unworthy  of  its  Almighty  Architect,  it  is  when  I  con 
template  the  cause  of  my  country,  deserted  by  all  the  world 
besides,  and  I,  standing  up.  boldly  and  alone,  and  hurling  de 
fiance  at  her  victorious  oppressors.  Here,  without  contem- 
platiAg  consequences,  before  high  Heaven  and  in  the  face  of 
the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the  just  cause,  as  I  deem 
it,  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty  and  my  love."  Xo  in 
spiration  finer  than  this  breathes  in  any  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  ut 
terances.  It  almost  seems  as  if  an  intimation  of  his  life  and 
death  were  given  to  him  at  the  moment — as  if  a  glimpse  into 
his  own  and  his  country's  future  had  been  vouchsafed  to  his 
excited  vision. 

The  crowd  slowly  separated;  the  citizens  moved  back  to 
their  homes;  those  who  had  accompanied  the  precious  re 
mains — at  last  resting,  and  in  safe  and  affectionate  keeping — 
from  Washington  and  points  along  the  route,  took  their  de 
parture  by  the  out-going  trains ;  the  guard  paced  their  little 
round  before  the  tomb,  where  through  the  grate  the  large  and 
the  little  coffin  lay  in  the  dim  light;  and  the  people  of  Spring 
field  were  left  to  their  grief  and  their  glory. 

There,  surrounded  by  the  sweetest  scenes  of  nature,  his 
tomb  a  shrine,  his  name  the  watchword  of  liberty,  his  fame 
in  the  affectionate  keeping  of  mankind,  his  memory  hallowed 
by  martyrdom  for  the  humane  and  Christian  principles  to 
which  his  life  was  devoted,  the  weary  patriot  rests.  His  sun 
went  down  suddenly,  and  whelmed  the  country  in  a  darkness 
which  was  felt  by  every  heart ;  but  far  up  the  clouds  sprang 
goon  the  golden  twilight,  flooding,  the  heavens  with  radiance, 
and  illuminating  every  uncovered  brow  with  the  hope  of  a 
fair  to-morrow.  The  aching  head,  the  shattered  nerves,  the 
anxious  heart,  the  weary  frame,  are  all  at  rest ;  and  the  noble 
spirit  that  informed  them,  bows  reverently  and  humbly  in  the 
presence  of  Him  in  whom  it  trusted,  and  to  whose  work  it 
devoted  the  troubled  years  of  its  earthly  life. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln  wrought  a  great  change  in  the 
feelings  of  all  the  representatives  of  foreign  opinion,  not 


536  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

only  toward  him,  but  toward  the  country  and  its  cause ;  and 
many  were  the  testimonials  that  came  in  every  ship,  of  for 
eign  sympathy  with  the  nation  in  its  bereavement,  and  with 
those  whose  family  life  had  been  so  cruelly  dissolved  by  the 
deed  of  the  assassin.  The  British  Queen  wrote  to  Mrs.  Lin 
coln  a  letter  of  condolence,  with  her  own  hand.  All  the  for 
eign  governments  took  occasion  to  express  their  horror  at  the 
crime  which  had  deprived  the  nation  of  its  head,  and  their 
eympathy  with  the  people  thus  suddenly  and  violently  bereft. 
The  London  Times,  which  had  always  been  unjust  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  said:  "It  would  be  unjust  not  to  acknowledge  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  man  who  could  not,  under  any  circumstan 
ces,  have  been  easily  replaced."  Further  on  in  its  article,  it 
confessed  that  "Englishmen  learned  to  respect  a  man  wno 
showed  the  best  characteristics  of  their  race,  in  his  respect 
for  what  is  good  in  the  past,  acting  in  unison  with  a  recogni 
tion  of  what  was  made  necessary  by  the  events  of  passing 
history."  The  London  Star  said:  "It  can  never  be  forgotten, 
while  history  is  read,  that  the  hands  of  southern  partisans  have 
been  reddened  by  the  foulest  assassin-plot  the  world  has  ever 
known ;  that  they  have  been  treacherously  dipped  in  the  blood 
of  one  of  the  best  citizens  and  purest  patriots  to  whom  the 
land  of  Washington  gave  birth."  The  London  Spectator 
spoke  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  "  the  noblest  President  whom  America 
has  had  since  the  time  of  Washington;"  and  "certainly  the 
best,  if  not  the  ablest,  man  ruling  over  any  country  in  the 
civilized  world."  The  London  Saturday  Eeview  said:  "Dur 
ing  the  arduous  experience  of  four  years,  Mr.  Lincoln  con 
stantly  rose  in  general  estimation,  by  calmness  of  temper,  by 
an  intuitively  logical  appreciation  of  the  character  of  the 
conflict,  and  by  undisputed  sincerity."  The  Economist  said : 
"  The  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln  is  a  very  great  and  very  lament 
able  event — perhaps  the  greatest  and  most  lamentable  which 
has  occurred  since  the  Coup  d'etat,  if  not  since  Waterloo.  It 
affects  directly  and  immensely  the  welfare  of  the  three  most 
powerful  countries  in  the  world, — America,  France  and  Eng 
land, — and  it  affects  them  all  for  evil."  Goldwin  Smith,  in 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  537 

Macmillan's  Magazine,  said:  "He  (Mr.  Lincoln)  professed 
to  wait  on  events,  or,  rather,  on  the  manifestations  of  the 
moral  forces  around  him,  wherein,  with  a  mind  sobered  by 
responsibility  and  unclouded  by  selfishness,  he  earnestly  en 
deavored  to  read  the  will  of  God,  which,  having  read  it,  he 
patiently  followed  to  the  best  of  his  power.  In  him,  his  na 
tion  has  lost,  not  a  king,  or  a  prophet, — not  a  creative  moulder 
of  its  destinies,  or  an  inspired  unfolder  of  its  future, — but 
simply  a  sensible  interpreter,  and  a  wise,  temperate,  honest 
executor  of  its  own  better  mind." 

Even  these  expressions  of  the  British  press  do  not  indicate 
the  popular  feeling  with  which  the  English  people  received 
the  announcement  of  Mr,  Lincoln's  assassination,  The  ex 
citement  which  filled  the  public  mind,  on  the  reception  of  the 
startling  tidings,  in  all  the  great  cities  and  considerable  towns 
of  England,  was  only  equaled  by  that  which  swept  over  those 
of  our  own  country.  It  was  hard  to  tell  whether  horror  at  the 
crime  or  grief  for  its  victim  was  the  predominant  emotion  of 
the  British  people.  Men  who  applauded  the  deed,  were  kicked 
out  of  assemblies  in  London,  as  they  were  in  New  York.  The 
dignified  Mr.  Mason,  the  rebel  commissioner,  was  boldly  con 
demned  for  an  attempt  to  extenuate  the  crime  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  a  natural  incident  of  civil  war. 

At  home,  the  change  of  feeling  was  hardly  less  marked  and 
gratifying.  Presses  that  had  clone  Mr.  Lincoln  injustice 
throughout  his  whole  career,  made  haste  to  lay  their  tribute 
of  respectful  praise  upon  his  bier.  Men  who  had  cursed  him, 
joined  tearfully  in  the  processions  which  attended  his  long 
journey  homeward.  Even  from  the  depths  of  the  dead  re 
bellion,  there  came  honest  lamentations,  and  sincere  praises. 
The  eyes  of  his  "blinded  fellow' countrymen,"  which  he  so 
ardently  desired  to  open,  were  unsealed  at  last,  to  beholJ,  in 
the  man  they  had  so  long  regarded  with  hatred  or  contempt, 
the  friend  they  had  always  possessed,  and  the  benefactor  they 
sorely  needed,  but  had  lost  forever. 


538  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Andrew  Johnson,  the  Vice-president,  became,  under  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  by  taking  the  oath  of  office,  on  the  morning  of  the 
murder.  The  people  who  had  battled  for  the  Constitution 
and  the  laws  so  long,  did  not  dream  of  a  resort  to  any  other 
course.  The  speculations  of  a  portion  of  the  foreign  press, 
concerning  this  event,  showed  how  unworthy  and  inadequate 
still  was  the  estimate  of  the  American  people  and  their  insti 
tutions.  There  was  not  a  hand  lifted,  or  a  word  uttered,  to 
question  or  'dispute  the  step  which  installed  a  new  President 
over  the  republic ;  and  there  was  not,  in  a  single  American 
heart,  a  doubt  as  to  the  result.  There  was  no  panic,  no  ex 
citement,  no  danger,  no  disaster;  but  the  country  kept  to  its 
groove,  and  felt  no  jar  as  it  slid  into  the  new  administration. 

The  world  could  not  conceal  Mr.  Lincoln's  murderer.  It 
had  no  waste  so  wide,  no  cavern  so  deep,  as  to  give  him  a  safe 
hiding-place.  That  was  evident  to  everybody;  and  would 
have  been  foreseen  by  himself,  had  he  not  been  stultified  by  his 
greed  for  blood.  Large  rewards  were  offered  for  his  appre 
hension,  and  military  ^  nd  police  were  quickly  on  the  alert. 
After  a  few  days  of  doubt,  it  became  evident  that  Booth,  with 
a  companion,  had  passed  over  the  Navy  Yard  Bridge,  which 
crosses  the  eastern  branch  of  the  Potomac.  It  was  known 
that  the  assassin  had  been  in  the  habit  of  spending  much  time 
in  Charles  County,  Maryland,  and  had  been  in  correspondence 
with  the  disloyal  people  there.  It  afterwards  appeared  that 
Booth,  accompanied  by  David  C.  Harold,  rode  all  night  after 
the  commission  of  the  murder;  and  that  near  Bogantown  he 
called  on  one  Dr.  Mudd,  to  have  his  leg  dressed,  which  had 
been  fractured  by  his  leap  upon  the  stage,  at  the  time  he  com 
mitted  the  murder.  The  detectives,  reaching  this  region,  and 
hearing  that  Dr.  Mudd  had  received  the  visit  of  two  suspi 
cious  strangers,  arrested  him  and  all  his  family.  From  this 
point,  Booth  and  his  accomplice  were  tracked  toward  the  Poto 
mac.  The  ruffians  were  undoubtedly  aided  in  their  progress 
by  disloyal  citizens,  for  the  officers  were  frequently  not  more 
than  an  hour  behind  them.  Although  gunboats  were  patroll- 


LIFE    OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  589 

ing  the  river,  the  murderer  and  his  accomplice  crossed  the 
Potomac  under  cover  of  darkness.  It  was  soon  afterwards 
ascertained  where  they  had  crossed,  and  the  cavalry  started  in 
pursuit.  The  men  were  found  at  last  in  a  barn  belonging  to 
William  Garratt.  The  building  was  surrounded,  and  Booth 
was  called  upon  to  surrender  himself.  He  flatly  refused  to 
do  so.  Harold  was  ready  to  surrender,  but  Booth  cursed  him 
for  a  coward ;  and  declared  to  Colonel  Baker,  at  the  head  of 
the  force,  that  he  would  not  be  taken  alive.  The  barn  was 
fired,  and  Booth  attempted  to  extinguish  the  flame,  but  failed. 
Harold  then  gave  himself  up,  while  the  murderer  remained, 
displaying  all  the  qualities  of  the  hardened  desperado.  Ser 
geant  Boston  Corbett,  moved  by  a  sudden  impulse,  drew  up 
his  pistol,  and  fired  upon  Booth,  who  was  seen  standing  in 
the  barn,  with  a  revolver  in  each  hand ;  and  planted  a  ball  in 
his  neck,  which  passed  entirely  through  his  head.  He  died 
within  less  than  three  hours,  sending  to  his  mother  a  message  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  died  for  his  country,  and  exhibiting  no 
penitence  whatever  for  the  terrible  deed  he  had  committed. 
He  was  shot  on  the  twenty-sixth  of  April,  twelve  days  after 
the  murder.  His  body  was  taken  back  to  Washington,  and 
was  buried,  no  one  save  those  to  whom  the  task  of  .sepulture 
was  assigned  having  any  knowledge  of  its  place  of  burial. 
Harold  was  committed  to  prison  to  await  his  trial. 

John  Wilkes  Booth  was  the  son  of  the  famous  actor,  Ju- 
nius  Brutus  Booth,  and  had  attained  some  celebrity  in  his 
father's  profession.  He  was  an  exceedingly  handsome  man  ; 
but  he  had  been  notoriously  and  grossly  profligate  and  im 
moral  in  his  habits.  Still,  his  gifts  and  his  beauty  had  made 
him  a  favorite  in  certain  nominally  respectable  social  circles. 
His  sympathy  with  the  rebellion  was  well  understood  in 
Washington,  but  he  was  never  regarded  as  a  dangerous  man. 
That  he  committed  the  crime  which  cost  him  his  life  from  any 
romantic  love  of  the  South,  or  from  any  desire  to  avenge  the 
South  for  fancied  wrongs,  is  not  probable.  The  deed  seems 
to  have  been  the  offspring  of  a  morbid  desire  for  immortality. 
He  had  given  frequent  hints,  in  his  conversation,  of  the  mis- 


540  LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

erable  passion  which  possessed  him ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
he  had  worked  himself  into  a  belief  that  he  should  rid  the 
world  of  a  tyrant  by  murdering  the  President,  and  thus  link 
his  name  with  a  startling  deed  which,  in  the  future,  would  be 
admired  as  a  glorious  act  of  heroism.  Certainly  his  deed  was 
one  of  wonderful  boldness ;  and  the  bravery  which  he  ex 
hibited  at  his  capture  was  worthy  of  a  better  cause  and  a 
better  man. 

Fortunately,  no  fatal  wounds  were  inflicted  upon  Mr.  Sew- 
ard  in  Payne's  attempt  upon  his  life,  or  upon  any  of  those 
who  were  subjects  of  violence  at  that  ruffian's  hands.  The 
Secretary  and  his  son,  Mr.  Frederick  Seward,  were  desper 
ately  wounded  ;  but,  under  skillful  surgical  care,  they  entirely 
recovered.  Payne  was  arrested,  and,  with  his  fellow  con 
spirators — David  E.  Harold  (who  was  captured  with  Booth,) 
George  A.  Atzerodt,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  Edward  Spangler 
(who  held  Booth's  horse  at  the  theater,  and  aided  his  escape,) 
Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt  and  Dr.  Samuel  Mudd — 
was  tried  by  a  military  commission.  The  conspiracy  contem 
plated  not  only  the  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward, 
but  that  of  Vice-president  Johnson  and  Lieutenant-general 
Grant.  Booth  alone  accomplished  his  task.  Payne  made  a 
desperate  effort, — such  as  only  a  man  of  his  great  physical 
strength  could  make ;  but  failed.  Atzerodt,  to  whose  hands 
the  murder  of  the  Vice-president  was  committed,  was  not 
competent  morally  or  physically,  to  the  task  he  undertook ; 
while  General  Grant  escaped  the  projected  attempt  upon  his 
life  by  leaving  the  city.  Harold,  Atzerodt,  Payne  and  Mrs. 
Surratt,  the  latter  of  whom  aided  and  abetted  the  plot,  were 
sentenced  to  be  hanged ;  and  they  suffered  the  penalty  of 
their  crimes  on  the  seventh  day  of  July.  Dr.  Mudd,  Samuel 
Arnold,  and  Michael  O'Laughlin  were  sentenced  to  hard 
labor  for  life,  and  were  consigned  to  the  Dry  Tortugas. 
Edward  Spangler  accompanied  them,  sentenced  to  hard  labor 
for  six  years. 


LIFE    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  541 

The  writer  cannot  bid  farewell  to  the  reader,  and  to  the  il 
lustrious  subject  of  this  biography,  without  a  closing  tribute 
to  a  character  unique  in  history,  and  an  administration  that 
Btands  alone  in  the  annals  of  the  nation.  We  have  seen  one 
of  the  humblest  of  American  citizens  struggling  through  per 
sonal  trials  and  national  turmoils,  into  the  light  of  universal 
fame,  and  an  assured  immortality  ot  renown.  We  have  seen 
him  become  the  object  of  warm  and  devoted  affection  to  a 
whole  nation.  We  have  witnessed  such  manifestations  of 
grief  at  his  loss  as  the  death  of  no  ruler  has  called  forth.,  within 
the  memory  of  man.  We  have  seen  a  great  popular  govern 
ment,  poisoned  in  every  department  by  the  virus  of  treason, 
and  blindly  and  feebly  tottering  to  its  death,  restored  to  health 
and  soundness  through  the  beneficent  ministry  of  this  true 
man,  who  left  it  with  vigor  in  its  veins,  irresistible  strength 
in  its  arms,  the  fire  of  exultation  and  hope  in  its  eyes,  and 
with  such  power  and  majesty  in  its  step,  that  the  earth  shook 
beneath  its  stately  goings.  We  have  seen  four  millions  of 
African  bondmen  who,  groaning  in  helpless  slavery  when  he 
received  the  crown  of  power,  became  freemen  by  his  word 
before  death  struck  that  crown  from  his  brow.  We  have 
seen  the  enemies  of  his  country  vanquished  and  suing  for  par 
don  ;  and  the  sneering  nations  of  the  world,  whose  incontinent 
contempt  and  spite  were  poured  in  upon  him  during  the  first 
years  of  his  administration,  becoming  first  silent,  then  respect 
ful,  and  then  unstinted  in  their  admiration  and  approbation. 

These  marvelous  changes  in  public  feeling,  and  the  revolu 
tions  imbodied  in  these  wonderful  results,  were  not  the  work 
of  a  mighty  genius,  sitting  above  the  nation,  and  ordering  its 
affairs.  That  Mr.  Lincoln  was  much  more  than  an  ordinary 
man,  in  intellectual  power,  is  sufficiently  evident;  but  it  waa 
not  by  intellectual  power  that  he  wrought  out  the  grand  re 
sults  of  his  life.  These  were  rather  the  work  of  the  heart, 
than  the  head.  With  no  wish  to  depreciate  the  motives  or 
undervalue  the  names  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  predecessors  in  office,  it 
may  be  declared  that  never,  in  the  history  of  the  government, 
have  the  affairs  of  that  office  been  administered  with  such  di- 


542  LIFE   OP   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

rect  reference  to  the  will  of  God,  and  the  everlasting  princi 
ples  of  righteousness  and  justice,  as  they  were  during  his 
administration.  It  was  eminently  a  Christian  administration — 
one  which,  in  its  policy  and  acts,  expressed  the  convictions  of 
a  Christian  people.  Standing  above  the  loose  morality  of 
party  politics,  standing  above  the  maxims  and  conventional 
isms  of  statesmanship,  leaving  aside  all  the  indirections  and 
insincerities  of  diplomacy,  trusting  the  people,  leaning  upon 
the  people,  inspired  by  the  people,  who  in  their  Christian 
homes  and  Christian  sanctuaries  gave  it  their  confidence,  this 
administration  of  Abraham  Lincoln  stands  out  in  history  as 
the  finest  exhibition  of  a  Christian  democracy  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  The  power  of  a  true-hearted  Christian  man,  in 
perfect  sympathy  with  a  true-hearted  Christian  people,  was 
Mr.  Lincoln's  power.  Open  on  one  side  of  his  nature  to  all 
descending  influences  from  Him  to  whom  he  prayed,  and  open 
on  the  other  to  all  ascending  influences  from  the  people  whom 
he  served,  he  aimed  simply  to  do  his  duty,  to  God  and  men. 
Acting  rightly,  he  acted  greatly.  While  he  took  care  of 
deeds,  fashioned  by  a  purely  ideal  standard,  God  took  care  of 
results.  Moderate,  frank,  truthful,  gentle,  forgiving,  loving, 
just,  Mr.  Lincoln  will  always  be  remembered  as  eminently  a 
Christian  President ;  and  the  almost  immeasurably  great  re 
sults  which  he  had  the  privilege  of  achieving,  were  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  Christian  President. 

Conscience,  and  not  expediency,  not  temporary  advantage, 
not  popular  applause,  not  the  love  of  power,  was  the  rul 
ing  and  guiding  motive  of  his  life.  He  was  conscientious 
in  his  devotion  to  the  Constitution  and  the  laws.  In  this 
he  was  in  advance  of  his  people,  and  in  advance  of  a  multi 
tude  of  his  own  friends.  With  every  constitutional  right, 
he  dealt  tenderly  and  carefully,  while  taunted  by  his  own 
friends  with  subserviency  to  an  institution  which,  in  his  in 
most  soul,  he  hated.  His  respect  for  law  was  as  profound 
and  sincere  as  his  respect  for  God  and  his  will.  Uninfluenced 
by  popular  clamor,  and  unbent  by  his  own  humane  and  Chris 
tian  desire  to  see  all  men  free,  he  did  not  speak  the  wor<J  of 


LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  543 

emancipation  until  his  duty  to  the  Constitution  which  he  had 
sworn  to  protect  and  defend  demanded  it.  There  is  no  doubt 
that,  if  he  could  have  saved  the  country  without  destroying 
slavery,  he  would  have  done  it,  and  done  it  against  the  most 
ardent  wishes  of  his  heart,  through  his  regard  for  the  Consti 
tution  which  protected  the  inhuman  institution,  and  the  oath 
by  which  he  had  been  invested  with  power.  It  was  not  slow 
ness,  nor  coldness,  nor  indifference,  that  delayed  the  emanci 
pation  of  the  slaves.  It  was  loyal,  devoted,  self-denying 
virtue. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  conscientious  in  his  patience.  He  knew 
and  felt  the  weakness  of  human  nature,  and  appreciated  the 
force  of  education  in  moulding  character  and  opinion.  Hence, 
he  was  patient  with  his  enemies,  and  equally  patient  with 
equally  unreasonable  friends.  No  hasty  act  of  his  adminis 
tration  can  be  traced  to  his  impatience.  When  such  an  act 
was  performed,  and  was  followed  by  its  inevitable  consequen 
ces  of  evil,  it  originated  in  the  impatience  of  those  whom  he 
could  not  control.  His  steps  were  taken  with  the  deliberate- 
ness  of  destiny;  and,  as  these  steps  are  retraced  by  the  histo 
rian,  he  can  compare  them  to  nothing  but  those  leisurely  and 
irresistible  proceedings  by  which  the  Great  Father  in  whom 
the  good  President  trusted  had  wrought  out  his  will  in  crea 
tion  and  Providence.  Step  by  step,  hand  in  hand  with  events, 
he  worked  and  waited  patiently,  for  the  great  consummation 
to  which  all  the  efforts  of  his  life  were  devoted.  Maligned, 
misunderstood,  abused,  cursed,  his  motives  the  foot-balls  of 
malice  and  envy  and  pride  and  foolishness,  he  waited  patiently 
for  history  to  vindicate  him,  and  permitted  no  smarting  sense 
of  personal  injustice  to  divert  him  from  his  duty  to  his  country. 

He  was  conscientious  in  his  regard  for  human  rights.  His 
opposition  to  slavery,  and  his  love  of  the  African,  were  no 
mere  matters  of  policy,  or  means  for  winning  power.  He 
had  a  tender,  brotherly  regard  for  every  human  being;  and 
the  thought  of  oppression  was  a  torment  to  him.  There  was 
nothing  that  moved  him  to  such  indignation  as  a  wrong  com 
mitted  against  the  helpless  ones  of  his  own  kind.  He  believed 


544  LIFE   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

that  negroes  were  men,  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  the 
rights  of  men ;  and,  thus  believing,  there  was  no  manly  privi 
lege  which  he  enjoyed,  that  he  would  not  have  been  glad  to 
see  conferred  upon  them.  Hence,  had  he  lived,  he  would 
logically  have  numbered  himself  among  those  who  will  agitate 
the  right  of  universal  loyal  suffrage  until  that  right  shall  be 
secured  to  every  loyal  man  living  under  the  American  flag. 

In  Mr.  Lincoln's  life  and  character,  the  American  people 
have  received  a  benefaction  not  less  in  permanent  importance 
and  value,  than  in  the  revolution  in  opinion  and  policy  by 
which  he  introduced  them  to  a  new  national  life.  He  has 
given  them  a  statesman  without  a  statesman's  craftiness,  a 
politician  without  a  politician's  meannesses,  a  great  man  with 
out  a  great  man's  vices,  a  philanthropist  without  a  philanthro 
pist's  impracticable  dreams,  a  Christian  without  pretensions, 
a  ruler  without  the  pride  of  place  and  power,  an  ambitious 
man  without  selfishness,  and  a  successful  man  without  vanity. 
On  the  basis  of  such  a  manhood  as  this,  all  the  coming  gen 
erations  of  the  nation  will  not  fail  to  build  high  and  beautiful 
ideals  of  human  excellence,  whose  attractive  power  shall  raise  to 
a  nobler  level  the  moral  sense  and  moral  character  of  the  nation. 
This  true  manhood — simple,  unpretending,  sympathetic  with 
all  humanity,  and  reverent  toward  God — is  among  the  noblest 
of  the  nation's  treasures ;  and  through  it,  God  has  breathed, 
and  will  continue  to  breathe,  into  the  nation,  the  elevating 
and  purifying  power  of  his  own  divine  life. 

Humble  child  of  the  backwoods — boatman,  ax-man,  hired 
laborer,  clerk,  surveyor,  captain,  legislator,  lawyer,  debater, 
orator,  politician,  statesman,  President,  savior  of  the  republic, 
emancipator  of  a  race,  true  Christian,  true  man — we  receive 
thy  life  and  its  immeasurably  great  results,  as  the  choicest 
gifts  that  a  mortal  has  ever  bestowed  upon  us ;  grateful  to  thee 
for  thy  truth  to  thyself,  to  us,  and  to  God ;  and  grateful  to  that 
ministry  of  Providence  and  grace  which  endowed  thee  so 
richly,  and  bestowed  thee  upon  the  nation  and  mankind. 


5  VI 


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